The Seal and the Sword
by OnTheImportanceOfLungs
Summary: He was just trying to find himself when he discovered her. In a snap decision, he chases her demons away. But is he ready to deal with the consequences?
1. Those Who Wander

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Claymore. I'm just a chronic crossover writer, trying to hit the gold. It appears that whenever I see a series I love, I tend to cross it over with Naruto. Bahahahaa.

Author's Note: People with familiarity in regards to Naruto? Huge amounts. People with familiarity in regards to Claymore? Not so many. I'll try to make sure everyone understands everything from both worlds.

With the help of another really big author's note. Heh. Skip it if you know what a Jinchuuriki is, and if you know how Claymore are created.

Author's Note, huge edition:

Naruto and Claymore are worlds that are separated by huge, close to insurmountable divides. The culture, religions, et cetera for Claymore are distinctively European, almost Germanic, judging from the post-Lutheran dress of the monks and bishops. The culture of Naruto is Heian? (correct me on this, reviewers) period Japan, with a concentration on the beautiful legends of Izanagi and all. Trying to reconcile these cultures is very, very difficult.

The key to a believable crossover (in the act of crossing) is to give plausible reasons as to why the worlds haven't been crossed earlier in canon. We (speaking as an author) have to tell the reader how the crossed worlds came to be in a fashion that doesn't have readers saying "give me a break! ANBU in Hogwarts, wtf?"

Blasting of bad crossovers besides, I'm here to tell you a bit about Naruto and Claymore in this paragraphed author's note. Bah. Naruto first. Naruto is a world in which humans are divided into civilians and ninja. Ninja are people who are able to manipulate their personal energies - spiritual and physical, to use Jutsu, which are logic-defying powers over the Elements and other things. This energy is called Chakra. The ninja rely on special techniques, speed, and skill with martial arts (known as Taijutsu) in order to excell, and get "missions" from civilians that result in cash. Over time, villages, themed after the area they reside, have sprung up to gain more missions easily. Besides the obvious wars between villages, there exists nine very powerful demons that have control over specific elements, and more power than any single ninja in existence, though with the right techniques, they can still be countered. In order to get an advantage, and therefore, get money, these demons, known as the Bijuu, are sealed in newborn babies to make them the most powerful ninja that a village can boast of. Unfortunately, they are generally hated, because their associated demon lords were right terrors. They are called the Jinchuuriki, which means Power of a Human Sacrifice.

Claymore is a society split into three groups - humans, Yoma and Claymore, though the third group doesn't prefer that name. Yoma are lesser demons with no real power, but can still defeat humans very easily, and tend to prey on their innards. Claymore are humanity's answer to the Yoma, implanting bits of the lesser demons into young girls to create supersoldiers with huge swords (modelled after the gigantic Scottish Claymore swords of the pre-Middle Ages). Thus, the Claymore in question is able to cut your average Yoma up pretty easily. The problems begin when a Yoma has consumed very many humans, and have become "Voracious Eaters", granting them abilities that the original Yoma don't have. Even worse is that Claymore slowly become Yoma, due to their slow drawing on their demonic abilities to combat stronger Yoma with greater ease. The Claymore are ordered in power, with the first being the strongest, and the last being the least powerful. Claymore are generally feared and hated by the very people they protected, due to their demonic auras and their haunting silver eyes.

**The Seal and the Sword**

A lone man wearing stolen robes of red and white was walking on the ocean, and monologuing.

He was nearly twenty five, and his blond countenance was of the sun-kissed and spiky variety. He had prominent whisker marks on either side of his cheeks, which looked rather faint, but when grew more prominent when a shadow fell across it. His eyes were cerulean, and he wore a little slab of metal tied around his neck with clothe. There was the insignia that consisted of several swirls that were artfully put together to resemble a leaf, and a long, deep gouge across it.

The other object around his neck was a cracked aquamarine jewel the shape of an obelisk which emitted a slight green glow every time a ray of sunlight struck it.

Tied to his waist was a longsword without a scabbard that looked to be newly forged, but the handle spoke otherwise. Once in a while, his hand strayed to the hilt, in a manner that seemed to be comforting to him. It was clear that he had owned the sword for a while. Every time the tip of the sword touched the water beneath his feet, it sparked.

"You know, when I was a little boy, I thought I was going crazy, because I heard voices. Now I really know what crazy is. Crazy is when there's no one else by your side, no one within you to share your pain. They laugh at us, and hate us deep in their hearts, but that's because they don't know how fortunate we are to have demons sealed in our navels."

The man paused, and surveyed a storm cloud in the distance.

"I never thought I'd miss her this much. She was always strong for me, when I was being beaten to the ground as a five year old. Despite the fact that she wanted me to flay them alive, or boil them with foxfire."

The man paused again, and looked straight into the sun.

"Kyuubi no Kitsune. To have you back for just a moment, you bastard Demon Fox."

The man continued to walk across the ocean, going in the direction of the setting sun. He walked briskly, and soon saw land.

"I'll find something to fill my heart with, you Nine-Tailed bitch! I'll forget you, and everything to do with you. Or my name isn't Uzumaki Naruto, the Sexy Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku!"

**The Seal and the Sword**

There wasn't much excitement several hundred miles west of the Elemental Nations, where Naruto had come from. So he decided to go further. On a good day, he walked nearly twenty miles. On a bad week, he stayed in a village and killed a lot of bandits.

He realized that he had a slight talent with languages, enough so that he would pick up rudimentary fluency after travelling through a country for more than two weeks. It took a month or two to cross most countries, however, and over that period, he generally picked up enough of whatever language he needed to order ramen, or any noodly equivalent of it.

It only got easier as he travelled further, and his mind blended the concept known as language into his every thought, until he didn't think in words, but in images.

It certainly made Kenjutsu easier. He may have left the Toad Summoning Contract, a huge scroll that Jiraiya-sensei had carried around everywhere, back in his home, but he did take a single sheet of scroll paper.

The Swirling Blade of the Uzumaki clan. It was just one Kata, the ninth, but he thought that it would be the one for him. He had carried the Nine-Tailed demon fox, after all. He had been a ninja for nine years before he became a missing-nin.

He carried exactly nine things with him when he left the Elemental nations forever - the robes of his village leader, Senju Tsunade, who had been his grandmother in every sense of the word, Tsunade's necklace, which could suppress demons, despite the fact that it was broken, one of the two Thunder Fangs that had won from a very powerful ninja, and reforged, the slashed hitai-ate, or forehead protector, a single three-pronged kunai that his father had used to massacre his enemies, and four unique pieces of knowledge that no living person had.

He was the final student of the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style - there had only been five others who had known it, but they were all dead. They had mostly gotten each other killed. He carried the knowledge of the Rasengan, an attack that his father had invented to deal the type of damage that only a Bijuu could. He was the last living Toad Sage, and the last one who would ever exist - the scroll he left behind could only be opened by a Toad Summoner, and he was the last one of those too. And finally, there was the ninth Kata of the Swirling Blade style. The rest of the scroll had been lost to the elements, and it was a miracle that the single Kata had survived in the ruins of the destroyed Uzumaki family compound.

He was currently standing on the sands of Arabia, which were much warmer, but slightly less dry than the sands of Suna, a country that had bordered his own, and practicing with his sword.

The Swirling Blade was majestic - there was no other way to describe it. It was a mainly static style that never had him bend his knees, or use his other hand. It rained hundreds of slices upon the opponent in the space of a minute, and while that may have been a tactic that wore down the opponent when it was designed, it was much more deadly when Naruto used it.

He held a reforged Sword of the Mist, after all. One of the two Thunder Fangs, the swords of Ringo Ameyuri, the swords of Kurosuki Raiga, two of the three S-classed swordsmen that the Mist had produced. He wondered for a moment if he would have preferred the greatest of the Seven Swords of the Mist, the Shark Skin Sameheda, more, but decided that he didn't.

The Iron General Mifune had taken the destroyed sword, and used the Chakra-enhanced metal to create a longsword that "would be perfectly suited to your style". It was a light, thin blade, but its natural ability to cut through anything made it a boon, and not a disadvantage.

"Maybe the Kyuubi would have known some sword tricks", he lamented to himself, and his nonexistent tenant.

**The Seal and the Sword**

When he reached the coast, he decided that he would travel north for a while before continuing west.

"You really shouldn't go past the Hellespont", a man told him in Turkish while he stayed in Constantinople. Despite the beauty of the huge city, he had no urge to stay. There was too much gossip, too much political intrigue, too much of everything he associated with Danzo, who had been a power-hungry bastard and had manufactured a series of events that led to his leaving of the Elemental Nations, even if that wasn't his aim.

"Why would I not past Hellespont?" Naruto asked. His Turkish was still rather shoddy.

"There are monsters. Demons that rule the lands, and evil silver-eyed Witches that kill them for exorbitant fees that are half-demons."

As soon as the man mentioned demons, Naruto's interest was piqued. "Thanks you a lots. I heed advice you." He paid for his drink, and left the bar.

He decided not to walk across the Black Sea - Water walking was a Chakra control exercise, and he had been doing them for years since the Kyuubi had left his stomach. His Chakra, which had always been impossibly high because of the Kyuubi, stayed on levels that no one he had known could match, and now that it wasn't increasing, his control over it had improved greatly.

He chartered a small fishing boat run by a farmer that "didn't believe in silly superstitions".

Naruto did. He felt the taint of Youki in the air like he had once felt when he fought Gaara, the Jinchuuriki of the One-Tailed Raccoon. While it was seriously weaker than the power of his tenant, it still had more Chakra than he did back then. Nowadays, he was on par with it, but from this distance, there were either a lot of demons, or it was very, very powerful.

For the first time in nine years, he was truly excited. He could sense that a new chapter in his life was about to begin. He dumped a bit of gold onto the bottom of the boat. "You. Go home. I feel demon. They wait the shore for us. I go with me, you no go with me."

"What do you mean you feel the demon? I thought you said you were the superstitious type either!" the fisherman cried.

"I not superstitious. I no believe in God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Ishmael. I believe in Izanami. She make very much demon. I know demon. They very powerful, kill you all. I know how kill demon. You fishman catch fish, I learn kill with ninjutsu many years. I walk on water. Goodbye."

Naruto leapt off the side of the boat and began running across the water as the fisherman sputtered about Jesus, and Christians being wrong about having seen their savior a thousand years previously.

"I work this years. Maybe learn turn fish into bread soon!" Naruto shouted across the water, with a grin that the fisherman described as fox-like on his face.

Naruto continued running for nearly an hour before he approached the shore, and sure enough, when he channeled a bit of Chakra to his eyes, he could see the signatures of eight lesser demons. During the end of the days he housed the Nine-Tailed Fox, they had attempted to imitate the Great Eye Techniques, the Byakugan and Sharingan, which gave their wielders so much power. What he got was something much weaker, but very useful all the same. He wasn't able to telescope, like the Hyuuga (who held the Byakugan) were, or concentrate on everything at once, as the Uchiha (who held the Sharingan) were. He wasn't able to see through walls, or copy and remember, with perfect clarity, everything he saw. He was just capable of the ability that both eyes shared - to see Chakra.

He wasn't the only person capable of it. One of his village leaders, a grandfather figure in his life, was able to do so. His teacher, the original toad sage Jiraiya-sensei was capable of it too. Very many enemies of his were capable of it too, and the ability generally marked the user as a very powerful ninja. There were precious few ways to hide from it, as he could see when people attempted to suppress their Chakra.

However, none of the beast were suppressing their Youki, and he saw it as clear as day - they lit up the shore like beacons.

But as he drew closer, he realized that it wasn't that simple. It appeared that one of the demons, dressed in light gray, was fighting the rest. He drew closer, and they all jumped back, and stared at him. Naruto realized that she was holding a huge sword, the same length as his reforged Thunder Fang, and possibly ten or twenty times as heavy.

He continued staring. She was beautiful, from her perfectly proportioned athletic body to the armor she wore, metal vambraces, shoulder guards, polished steel boots and a cape of all things. Her hair was a lighter shade of blond than his, and as a ray of sunlight hit her face, her silver eyes glinted. _Hanyou._ She was a half-demon.

Naruto performed a Shunshin, a jutsu that allowed him to bridge long gaps in the blink of an eye, appearing beside her, and stared down the monsters. "You look like you need some help", he said in Arabic. It didn't work. She clearly didn't understand it.

"Help, you need?" he tried again, in Turkish. A bit of recognition came into her eyes, and she seemed to be thinking hard.

"No. No much... _Yoma_... They..." she finished in a string of what Naruto knew was German. He knew because he had thought about learning it, and he didn't.

"I no know German. When_ Yoma"_, Naruto rolled the word around in the inside of his mouth, "dead. You teach German me. You tell me on _Yoma_ and why bad evil in air."

The girl seemed to understand most of what he said. "I... I _Teresa_. I new to org- organ- organi... company. They", she made a dismissive gesture at the area around them, possibly refering to the world, "call _Claymore_. I Number One. Watch me. No come close. You power special, but no can fight _Yoma_. Only _Claymore_", she made a distasteful face at the name again, "fight _Yoma_."

The girl shot forward in speeds that he would be hard-pressed to match, and he suddenly realized that they were knee deep in slain Yoma. "No good! Tired you! I kill rest!"

Naruto charged as fast as he could, surprising Yoma and Claymore alike, and with several artful sweeps, decapitated three of the monsters. The Claymore, Teresa, jumped back, realizing that the newcomer was capable of dealing with the Yoma, and watched as he sliced them into literal chunks.

"Why you cut _Yoma_ so much?" she asked, in Turkish, when he finished, and wiped the blade in the sand.

"Purple blood mean _Izanami-_type demon. They hard stay dead. Small piece make stay dead."

"_Izanami_?" she pronounced the foreign word with the same difficulty in which Naruto pronounced Yoma.

"God of Demon, God of Death. Story is she marry brother _Izanagi_, but she take to underground, turn into most evil Demon. Want to kill _Izanami_ fail. She kill hundred. He make hundred fifty people."

Teresa wondered if it were some strange take on Greek mythology, but didn't question it. She would have had to try words that she was very unfamiliar with.

"How you able kill _Yoma_. You no is _Claymore_." She looked as if she'd eaten a bad egg every time she said Claymore. Naruto understood. He said Jinchuuriki in the same way.

"I used to hold demon in me. Very strong demon. Kill many people. Now gone. I miss."

She stared at him. "You... miss? You like be demon?"

"No, I not demon. I Uzumaki Naruto, to you, Naruto. Naruto first name. Uzumaki family. Demon container. _Jinchuuriki_", he said. His face took on a sneer when he said it. "Very small child. Put demon in me. Hope I make good weapon. Like _Claymore_?"

"Yes. Claymore weapon. Claymore girl with demon. Half demon, become real demon. When become real demon, other Claymore kill. I never use. Only own skill. Use less demon skill, not become demon. Why they call me _Teresa of the Faint Smile_", she finished in German.

"_Teresa of the Faint Smile_", Naruto had less problems with German now. It was both harsh and pretty, unlike Arabic, which was dry and majestic, or Turkish, which was choppy but sexy. "What mean _Teresa of the Faint Smile_?"

"I _Teresa_. _Faint_ _smile_... I no turn to demon, grin small bit, always beautiful when kill."

"When I _Jinchuuriki_, I no like use demon too. Make me into monster. Learn to be good ninja with no demon."

"Ninja?"

"Many many miles east, Elemental Nations. Only way make money join village and learn kill. My father _ninja_. My mother _ninja_. My mother family all _ninja_ of _Uzi no Kuni_, land in pool turning. Turn turn turn pool." Naruto smiled. He sounded like a fool again. But Teresa understood.

"How you make land in pool turn? Pool turn take under sea."

"Not real. We make you look. You believe pool turn. Not real pool turn. Pool turn village. When ninja come out, surprise very big."

"You from turn pool land?"

"No. From leaf land. Turn pool land destroyed. My mother go to leaf land, learn to leaf ninja. My father very strong. Village leader. When he die, people cry. He die split demon in half, put in me. Only can put in baby, I new baby. Mother die from give baby. He want follow to die, so put demon in me, and die. Summon _Izanami_ to take demon spirit away."

"But you say demon in you. How dead God take demon?" Teresa asked, rather confused, though she believed him. She had the ability to sense demonic energies, more ability than anyone who had ever been a Claymore, and residue of very, very potent demonic energies ran through his veins.

"God take demon spirit. Put demon body in me. _Eight Trigrams Sealing Style_."

"_Eight_.. _Trigrams_.. _Sealing_ _Style_?" she attempted to pronounce.

"Yes. Strong, strong _Seal_. Demon gone but _Seal_ still here", Naruto pulled up the top of his robe, showing her the swirl mark on his navel. "Demon in _Seal_. Very strong _Seal_. Not can demon control me, even if want. I want once", Naruto's face darkened, "to kill evil man. But no can control. I lose. Demon leave. I not grateful. Twenty one years know demon. Not hate. No one know demon not like me. Demon dead now." Naruto frowned and looked away. He didn't know why he was telling the girl this, but it wasn't like it was a secret, and she appeared to know what he was going through.

"Can you _Seal_ demon me?" she asked, rather hopefully.

Naruto put his arms on her shoulder and grasped her neck gently, then channeled magic into his eyes. He sprang upwards, surprised. "Power of one tail or more in you, girl. More power you, less power me. If _Seal_, no have power. Only skill left, no strength if _Sealed._ Not good for _Yoma_. No can kill easily. No like this." Naruto gestured to the scores of slain Yoma.

She looked crestfallen and more than ready to cry. Naruto understood. If someone had told him that they had the ability to remove the Demon from him, or stop it from conversing with him, he would have latched on like a...

"Take three years."

She looked at him strangely, still rather disappointedly.

"You have skill. No have power. You have _Chakra Pathways molded_. You can power. No from demon. From you. Like I get power from me. I get power three years. You no training, but you smart, older. I make you warrior with no demon. I make you _ninja_. Learn ninjutsu. Like _Great Fireball Jutsu_!" Naruto called out, and breathed a gout of flame at the setting sun, setting a lone tree alight and burning it into ash in seconds.

"_What the hell was that!_", Teresa screamed in German.

Naruto smiled. "Low power. C rank. I know A rank, S rank power. I teach you all if _Seal_ demon. Help you do job and teach you _Jutsu_, if you teach me use sword and German. Maybe go date with you", Naruto winked.

Teresa's face darkened. At first, Naruto believed she had blushed, but then it became clear that it was not the case. "_I'll skin you alive if you touch me_." Naruto didn't know what it meant, but he still hopped back.

"I just kidding. No make move you. No mad. Just joke. Little joke. Very harmless. I harmless. You have power. My demon not in jail no more", Naruto pointed at his navel.

Teresa couldn't resist rolling her eyes. Naruto was clearly not harmless, even without a demon. "How you make _Seal_?"

"Very easy. Show stomach like I show stomach. Make three seal. First make two _Four Symbols Seals_, then make _Five Element Seal_. _Five Element Seal_ Chinaman Seal, not Japanman seal like _Four Symbol Seal_. More power, less skill in _Five Element_. Take away _Chakra_ control. Make _Four Symbol Seal_ into _Three Pronged Seal_ and balance, so you use _Chakra_. Nearly make mistake. When I twelve, _Five Element Seal _bad man me use. No _ninjutsu_ after."

"_Senjutsu: Hakke Shomo no Fuin Shiki_!" His eyes flashed yellow for a moment, and Teresa panicked as Naruto's strange energy (which she had identified as Chakra) changed fundamentally and grew by a huge amount, but then his palm slammed into Teresa's stomach and she howled in agony, cursing a blue streak.

"_Gogyo Fuin_!" Naruto slammed his other hand into her navel, and the pain increased ten fold, as she felt the Youki in her surge, then disappear entirely. She stared miserably when she realized that her hair had not turned back black.

"Your eyes. They become green. Very pretty." Teresa had to agree. She stood shakily, and attempted to pick up her sword, but it wouldn't budge.

"I weak now. No match for ten, twenty, even number thirty. I weakest." She felt miserable.

"No be mad. Demon _Sealed_ now. You make own power. Take _Mifune no Kiba_. When put energy, make perfect cut. Cut all. Very light. You use easy."

"You give sword me?" she stared. Swords were the pride and joys of warrior.

Naruto turned away again. "Sword very special yes. Made by strong group, take from enemy, make again by most power _samurai_, like knight, not like _ninja_. It _Mifune no Kiba_, thunder fang. I love. I no can fight well. Not like _Claymore_ with sword. I fight with bare hand or _kunai_ kill me if fight with sword. You need more."

Teresa nodded. "You take my _Claymore_. Very well make sword. You can use, you have strength for sword."

Naruto smiled as they traded swords. "Now, you teach me German and I teach you _Chakra Control_. Make you strong. Strong more than me." He smiled wistfully, and stared at his dead-feeling left hand. He didn't like the Gogyo Fuin much.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Okay, that's that! All the terrible, terribly broken English that I've written in has set my SAT study back three hundred points.

This was hell of a lot of fun to write. Claymore is hell of a lot of fun to read. I hope you liked it more than my other Crossovers, if you've read those. In this, Naruto isn't going to be very powerful... Just... Sage Mode. This is strictly a Naruto/Teresa story. She's a bit out-of-character right now, but we're going to see her colder side very soon. Naruto just brings out the best in everyone.


	2. Teresa

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Claymore. I do love Naruto, and I definitely love Teresa, though.

Author's Note: The response is giving me a warm fuzzy feeling deep inside. Also, there's one F-bomb in this chapter, but I didn't want to up the rating. So here's fair warning. You have no idea how hard it is to write a Claymore fic without any cursing at all.

Check out my C2 for good Crossover fics (unlike mine, haha) at www. fanfiction. net/ community/ Breaking_ the_ Boundaries_ between_ Worlds_ Good_ Crossovers/ 93077/

**The Seal and the Sword**

"No, you balance leaf on ears, not use static lightning to stick!" Naruto put his face in his hands. Teresa had gotten the easiest part of the Chakra control exercise down - sticking leaves to her fingertips, in record times (an hour), but it had taken three hours to get it to stick to her bare elbows and two days for her to do it through her gloves. She didn't have small amounts of Chakra - more than most of the mid level Chunin in his old village, but she had no control over it at all.

The only usage of Chakra that Claymore did was firing it into their muscles to lift heavy, heavy swords (Naruto had trouble lifting it without Chakra himself), and sometimes in their legs to move very quickly. The only person who had used it that way in Naruto's experience was a boy whose Chakra system, which acted almost like blood vessels, was irreparably damaged at birth, and all the Chakra produced fled into his muscles. He died fighting.

"Okay, we try other thing." It had been two days, but with the help of a bible that Teresa had found on a dead body, and nearly ten hours of teaching, Naruto's German had become better than his Turkish. He noted that it took him around three or four days of nonstop studying to learn Arabic, but German seemed to be alot more second nature to him. Perhaps he worked harder because he wanted to impress Teresa.

"When I in Konoha..." Teresa's trademark smile appeared when she saw the happy glint in Naruto's eye that could only come from a monologue about his hometown. "There was a family. Very powerful family - the Hyuuga. Able to see point of Chakra give-outs in body. They had beautiful purple but not purple, more white, much more white than purple eye. I try copy eye, not can do. They see all Chakra. Byakugan, white, all see eye of Hyuuga. When I try see all, I almost go blind. But I use for you. I put Chakra in your out point, seal up. Very painful, but learn fast. Do you want learn fast?"

"Grammar first. When I _was_ in Konoha, there was a family, _a_ very powerful family - the Hyuuga. _They were_ able to see _points_ of Chakra _output_ _on the_ body. They had beautiful _white eyes that were purple-tinted_. I _tried to_ copy _their eyes_, _but I couldn't._ They see all Chakra. _The_ Byakugan _is_ the white, all _seeing_ eye of _the_ Hyuuga. When I _tried to copy their eyes_, I almost _went_ blind. But I _will_ use _it_ for you. I _will_ put Chakra _at your output points_, _sealing them_ up. _It is _very painful, but _you will_ learn _quickly_. Do you want _to_ learn _quickly_?"

Naruto dutifully repeated it several times, committing it to memory.

"And yes, even if it hurts a bit. This is really very frustrating." She smiled again, and Naruto caught himself staring.

"Is there something on my face?"

"No, I just thinking."

"No, I _was_ just thinking."

Naruto repeated that several times too.

"Okay, now I _will_ do it."

Teresa smiled encouragingly as Naruto's eyes flashed blue, and his hand darted forward, touching her lightly in seven or eight areas on her spine.

"Gah!" she cried out, and she collapsed to the ground.

"Do you feel it? Your Tenkutsu points not outputting Chakra? You feel where they are?"

"_D-do_ you feel where they are..." she protested weakly, and she writhed for a moment as Naruto repeated the phrase several times.

"Sorry, but I am not good at Jyuuken - Hyuuga style was big secret. I had to go to root of problem, seal seven of eight Celestial Gates. Leave one open so you live."

"_The_ Hyuuga style was _a_ big secret. I had to go to _the_ root of _the_ problem, _and_ seal seven of the eight Celestial Gates. _I left_ one open so you _would _live."

Naruto repeated that several times too. "Have you felt your Tenkutsu points?"

"Yes. And good work on that l-last sentence", Teresa ground out.

"Good. Now comes hard part. You will force your Chakra to each plug I made, and blow them out of way. Start with smallest, at base of spine, go up to neck. Get harder and harder, but more and more Chakra each time."

"Now comes _the_ hard part. Blow them out of _the_ way. Start with _the _smallest, at _the_ base of _your_ spine, _and _go up to _the _neck. _It will_ get harder and harder, but _you will have_ more and more Chakra each time. You're- you're getting better at grammar."

Teresa concentrated the miserably tiny (compared to usual, at least) amount of Chakra into the base of her spine, and pushed against the block that Naruto had made.

It was like washing away a stone wall with water. It felt impossible, but each time she hit it, the barrier would chip slightly. Her eyes stayed closed as she concentrated on breaking through the barrier. When more than half of it was gone, she found that it had become much easier, and in several strokes, she destroyed the dam and felt Chakra flood into her extremities. It was strange to be aware of every single point where her Tenkutsu points ended.

"Very good. It took you eight hours. Took me three minutes with the help of the demon."

Teresa resisted the urge to get catty, choosing to correct his grammar instead, "_It_ took me three minutes. I'll work on unsealing the rest. I can feel all the points now."

Unfortunately, while she had more to Chakra to work with, it did get more difficult. On the bright side, she wasn't paralyzed in pain anymore, nor was she unable to move her wrist or ankles, so she could do it while teaching Naruto German and walking.

"No, Koch is pronouced caw-he, not cah-ck", she grit her teeth in annoyance as she tried to work through the fourth block. This technique was truly amazing - she was able to send exact amounts of Chakra to each one of her Tenkutsu points, but when she mentioned it to Naruto, he looked rather taken aback.

"You must have the perfect control if you can do that. I knew two ninja with the perfect control. My teammate and my grandmother. Both very strong, can use Chakra to punch holes in mountains, and make earthquakes."

"You must have perfect control. I knew two ninjas with perfect control. Both _were_ very strong, _and they could_ use Chakra."

Naruto nodded, wondering what he did wrong this time, and repeated the phrase several times.

"It's useless now. You have all the grammar down. It's just how to use it properly. Read more of the Bible. I know what you think of it", she smiled faintly, "but it helps."

**The Seal and the Sword**

"I have to go. Do _not_ follow me. I'll be back in an hour."

Naruto nodded. She was possibly receiving payment for all the Yoma she had killed when she had met him. He would never had let a friend follow him back to Konoha to get a new mission if the friend was an unknown entity, and possibly a threat.

He sat and watched her retreating backside, then pulled out the Bible. "Ah, the good part, when God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. Jiraiya-sensei would have been first casualty."

"Would have been _the_!" Teresa's voice sounded. Naruto repeated it several times, before going back to the Bible.

Teresa moved quickly, but it seemed that her Handler had been observing her for a while. She was always mystified as to how they could move as fast as the Claymore did, and wondered...

"Orsay." Teresa had the gift of looking no less intimidating when she wasn't wearing armor. The single Fang longsword that Naruto gave her hung from her back.

"New sword?" the Handler asked, smirking. "Might it have something to do with your new companion? I didn't think you travelled in pairs anywhere."

"He's powerful."

"A Yoma? No, not a Yoma. Are you consorting with an Awakened Being, perhaps? And why are you using your Suppression pills? Does he like green eyes?" his eyes drilled into hers, and Teresa was reminded that she looked more like a very beautiful human than a half-demon now.

Teresa gave him her coldest smile, and while Orsay was used to death threats from the Claymore that he was in charge of, Teresa was still capable of unnerving him - she was the only one.

"Don't be silly", the traces of a smile appeared on her lips. "He's a human. Completely human."

"A bedwarmer, then? Possibly a foreigner who doesn't know that you're-" Orsay's grin grew wider.

The smile grew colder. and suddenly Orsay was reminded of exactly who he was dealing with - the most powerful Claymore in the entire Organization, able to cut down any of the others.

Orsay coughed to cover up the momentary expression of fear, but the triumph that leaked into Teresa's smile told him that she had seen him in a moment of weakness. "I have a Black Card for you."

"Whose is it?" Teresa's eyes narrowed, and the smile receded slightly.

Orsay didn't say a word, but instead handed her the insignia of the one she had replaced.

"I never thought she'd Awaken", she said softly.

"Steel silk", Orsay mumbled, gauging Teresa's tone.

"What was that?" Teresa asked. Her smile now had a bit of disdain injected into it.

"N-nothing." Orsay pretended to cough again. He was annoyed with himself. He was the most senior of the Handlers in the Organization, and he was cowed by one of his subordinates.

"Will that be all?"

"Yes. She will be on the Godahl Plateau", said Orsay, believing that he had regained some of his cool.

Teresa disappeared in a way that no one else could. She wasn't the fastest, but rather, the most graceful by far.

"You'll get yours", Orsay whispered into the wind. He had the distinct feeling that she had heard him.

Teresa appeared by Naruto, who was sleeping, with his head buried in Judges. "Wake up, Naruto. We have to go."

"You're human now. You need rest. Your demon isn't going to give you super stamina. I learned that the hard way several years back."

"I have to kill someone before they Awaken."

"What's that, exactly?"

"Didn't I tell you yesterday..."

"Yes. Tell me again", Naruto was looking straight into her eyes now. "Do you think you're a match for her as you are?"

Teresa paused.

"I have a Jutsu... the most powerful one that I possess... it can level mountains. Do you want me to-"

"No. I must do this alone."

"How powerful is she, compared to how you were?"

Teresa bit her lip. "She was nearly as strong as I was. I had barely beaten her for my spot. Since then, I've gotten much better - I developed my sensor abilities after that..."

"Do you have sensor abilities now? Will she not kill you ease?"

"_Easily_", she corrected absentmindedly. "No, I'm still as fast I was, and more efficient. I might be more susceptible to damage, but the Thunder Fang is a markedly better at cutting than my old Claymore, and I'm confident I can kill her. With ease."

"But you said easily before", Naruto scratched his head. Teresa smiled in a most infuriating manner at him.

They drifted off to sleep. Her back was to her new sword as she slept sitting, but Naruto had actually lain down on the huge sword, with his head floating slightly off the ground. "Excellent Chakra control to maintain that", he whispered to her, pointing at himself, but she was out like a light.

"Wake up", she said softly, but Naruto bounded up immediately. In an instant, he had the Claymore in the reverse grip that was the first stance of the ninth Swirling Blade kata.

"Oh, I'm not used to people waking me up..." he trailed off, then smiled, "I see breakfast!" Confusion made it's way to Teresa's face for a-

_Pss-Zap!_

A largish bird fell out of a tree with a smoking hole in its breast, and Teresa was extremely envious for a moment.

"Lightning Jutsu. It's elementary. I'll teach you today, if your Chakra nature allows you to do it. You don't need a lot of control for it."

As Naruto cooked, he explained Chakra natures to her, repeating missed phrases every minute or so. "I've prepared a piece of Chakra paper for you. It took very long, but I held it over one of my gates, so it didn't take several days. I have a lot of Chakra", he explained.

"What do I do with this?" Teresa asked, mystified.

"Oh right. I forget-"

"_Forgot_."

"I forgot. You channel Chakra deeply through it."

"Deeply?"

"You push in Chakra."

"You push in _the _Chakra."

"Right. If you're-"

"Repeat!"

"Okay, okay. You push in the Chakra. If you're Fire nature, which is possible, drop it fast. It will burn. If you are Earth nature, it will turn to dirt, and crumble. If you are Wind nature, it will split into pieces. If you are Water nature, it will grow wet. If you are Lightning nature, it will wrinkle."

"Fire _natured_, Earth _natured_, Wind _natured_, Water _natured_, and Lightning _natured_."

Naruto grimaced, but repeated it dutifully. "I was Wind natured. Now I can use four elements easily, but Earth is harder for me. Being natured makes it easier to do some things."

Teresa nodded, and put her hand on the Chakra paper, pushing her Chakra into it. It quickly split into several pieces, and they curled up, splitting again.

"Very strong Wind natured, like I was, and even stronger Lightning natured, more Lightning power than Sasuke."

"Wind _nature_ and lightning _nature_ in this case. Who was Sasuke?"

Naruto repeated it. "Sasuke was my best friend and teammate, until an evil man gave him a Cursed Seal, and turned him into a half-demon. He left the village, and I had to hunt him down and kill him. He killed a lot of my friends." Naruto grimaced again.

Teresa nodded, and noted the parallels to the current situation, though she wouldn't refer to Rosemary as her best friend. She would kill her though.

"The Jutsu I used before. Lightning Release: Lance, is a C-ranked Jutsu. I expect you to master it within thirty minutes. It's very easy. Observe the hand seals for both hand."

"_Hands_." Naruto repeated it, which showing her the handseals.

"When you use Jutsu, saying the name in the end helps you focus it. After a time, you can use one hand for handseals, and then no hands, and then no name. If you add the Ram seal", Naruto demonstrated, "you don't need the name. But it is very powerful when you've completely mastered it."

In an instant, all the trees surrounding them had been reduced to charred stumps by Naruto's lances, which danced from each finger.

"You say this is a weak Jutsu?"

"Yes, very weak, compared to several that I know. Two dying men, they taught me the most powerful Lightning Jutsu in existence. They came from the Hidden Cloud, specializes in Lightning Jutsu."

"_It_ specializes in Lightning Jutsu. What are the most powerful Lightning Jutsu?" she asked, mildly intrigued. Naruto did tell her that she had a Lightning nature.

"Lightning Release Armor and the Black Lightning", Naruto said, rather ominously. "I lack the ability to use either, but I know mechi- mechanics."

"I know _the_ mechanics." Naruto nodded and exercised his German as Teresa ran through her handseals.

True to Naruto's prediction, Teresa had begun utilizing a Lightning Lance that was stronger than even his. "I've got it, Naruto. What's next?"

"Try it either with one hand, or without the words, and then both. To do one hand jutsu, you must visualize the other half of the handseal."

"_Handseals_." Naruto nodded and mimicked her inflections as best as he could, finding new determination in mastering German before she mastered Jutsu.

Soon enough, she was firing off Lances one-handedly, and with the speed of a mildly experienced ninja. Naruto marvelled at the amount of potential he was tapping when he taught her. It was without a question that she was much more of a genius than Sasuke.

"Now, to do it without handseals, your memory won't be of the correct handseals to produce it, but rather, what you felt when it left your hands. Without handseals, you'll be able to perform it as fast as I did, and if you want to fire it from more than one fingers, you should try different fingers with the handseals."

"One _finger_", Teresa corrected, and began doing as he said. Naruto was pleased to realize that she was taking the less arrogant route, and using the name of the Jutsu again to familiarize herself with it.

Before he knew it, they had walked for nearly eight hours, and Teresa had both replicated Naruto's multi-shot Lightning Lance with neither handseals nor words when abruptly, Teresa stopped practicin. "They're drawing closer. They're watching us."

Naruto nodded. He'd felt the approaching signatures of abnormally quick humans several miles back. They walked in silence for several hours, with him reading the Bible in the same manner one of his oldest teachers, Kakashi-sensei, had read smut while walking, his eyes dancing over the terrain. He decided that it made him look harmless enough.

He felt a burst of demonic Chakra, and realized that it was a signal of sorts when Teresa stopped, and told him that she'd be back in an hour again.

It was another Handler, one that she didn't know very well. He had several questions about Naruto, and mistook the red and white robes for an obscure order of the Church, since Naruto's head (Teresa suddenly remembered) had been buried in the Bible for hours.

After several choice taunts from one end, and a plethora of unhinging smiles from the other, they both departed. Teresa received a quick warning about Yoma in the woods, as well as non-subtle hints about her travelling companion's safety, but Teresa, who knew much better than the Handler, never stopped smiling faintly.

True to the Handler's word, there were a bunch of Yoma (twenty eight, she counted), surrounding Naruto. His face was still in the Bible, but he was perched like a big blond bird of prey on the huge Claymore, which was stuck in the ground.

"Maa, maa, you have to come with me with the intent to kill!" she heard. She noticed that, for some strange reason, the band that he wore around his neck was around his forehead, and the metal bit was over his right eye. She wondered why he'd do that - she knew that without an eye, depth perception would be shot.

It seemed that the Yoma hadn't even gotten close to him. One leapt at him, but he leaned quickly to the the side, and the Yoma passed straight over him and crashed into a tree. He righted himself without using his hands, and he was perched perfectly again.

"Stop playing around with them", she shouted, as she drew the Kaminari no Kiba.

"Done." In an instant, the Yoma all sank into the ground as if it were quicksand, and then it hardened into stone.

"Earth Release: Pressure of the Living Burial", he explained. "They're all crushed into pulp, underground." He stared at her for a moment, and his face twisted up as if he was trying to remember something, then he brightened in an instant, "By the way, your sword is called the Thunder Fang because it can channel Lightning Jutsu. You might want to practice it on Yoma for experience."

She pointed the sword at him, and he evaded the Lightning Lance with wide eyes. "Don't play around with Yoma. You never know when they get lucky."

Naruto nodded. He supposed that it was akin to how he had defeated much stronger opponents in the past with tricks.

They walked several miles before settling down to sleep, both lost in memories.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"You know what it's like, don't you. To be kicked down to the lowest rung on the ladder, then forced to fight for a living." She spoke suddenly.

Naruto froze, contemplating his life, and nodded. "Twice..." he trailed off absentmindedly.

There was another pause. "Teach me a new Jutsu."

"I'll do better than that. I'll teach you two. The Lightning Surge, and the Lightning Strike Armor. They are two of the six precursors to learning the Lightning Release Armor."

Naruto made several handseals very slowly, and called out, "Lightning Release: Surge!", clearly, and struck the ground. Nearly three hundred feet away, a tree was instantly zapped and flash-fried. "It's stronger than the Lance, and more accurate, providing the target's on the ground. It's very hard to dodge, even if you're really fast. You have to be able to feel the Lightning reaching towards you."

She had no problem with it at all, learning it in hours. Naruto was actually jealous for once. It was as if Sasuke was standing before him again. He wondered for a moment how powerful she would be if she had possessed a Sharingan eye as he did, and was able to copy techniques. He wondered if this was what it was like to teach legends like the Third Hokage, his adoptive grandfather, Sarutobi Hiruzen, who learned most Jutsu than anyone had before or after him.

In another hour, she had gotten it with neither handseals nor words. "E-excellent", Naruto stared. "Lightning Strike Armor. You surround your body with Lightning..." Naruto made several handseals very slowly, and called it out. In an instant, he had lit up the enter clearing. He punched a tree, and it exploded, but the Lightning intercepted the debris, and destroyed it, then disappeared.

"You can take one fatal hit, without incurring any damage. Even if you cut me with Kiba, I'm confident that my Lightning Strike Armor would stop it. The disadvantage is that you can't see through it without expose your head-"

"_Exposing_ your head", Teresa said.

"Yes, exposing your head, and it only lasts for the duration of one good hit - ten seconds, after it's hit a single time. That's why it could block all those wood chips."

While the technique had been easier for Naruto when he learned it - he had reverse engineered it from watching Kurosuki Raiga, who he'd won the Kaminair no Kiba from, Teresa had a lot more trouble with it than the Lightning Surge. Thus, Naruto decided that Teresa took a while to pick up new things - wrapping Lightning Chakra around herself, rather than releasing it into another medium.

She still got it faster than he did, at four hours and thirty minutes. It took a remarkable hour for her to do it without either words or handseals, and she had a lot of fun activating it the second a Yoma came too close, and electrocuting them.

"At this rate, they'll be calling you Teresa of the Silent Thunder", Naruto joked. Teresa lanced him in the chest with an errant finger, and Naruto was reminded that his companion didn't find much funny.

"Okay. There's an hour before sunset, and two days before we get to Godahl Town, and maybe another day before we reach summit, right? I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to have you learn the Lightning Release Armor before you have to fight the Awakened Being. With it, you'll find that you're going to be using the third fastest jutsu in existence, and the fastest that doesn't involve messing with space and time."

She nodded, but frowned. "I'm fast enough already-"

"No, you misunderstand me. It makes you many times faster than you are already. If you were a civilian, and by a trick of nature and the will of Izanagi, you performed it, you would be able to outstrip most Claymore. But if I performed it, I could run roughly three times faster than the speed of sound."

She stared in shock.

"Yes, but even beyond that, you'll be able to hold it for nearly a minute. It's nearly impervious - even the most piercing of attacks can't get through it, and when you touch something, it'll electrocute with nearly fourteen megavolts of electricity. That's ten times stronger than your Lightning Strike armor. The man who used it, he was a real monster on the battlefield. I doubt I could have brought him down when I met him, but I have several tricks that I can use to match him nowaday."

"_Nowadays_. What would these tricks be?"

Naruto repeated the word several times, then bit his lip. "I can gather energy from the Earth, and use it as a conduit for power, augmenting myself in such a degree that I can fight demons that are far stronger than I am now. Unfortunately, it takes a while for me to be able to use it, and it'll disappear if I use up all the gathered energy. It is how I perform my most powerful Jutsu. It is the reason I am called a Sage."

"You, a Sage of all things?" Teresa's smile grew disbelieving.

"Yes, I'm..." he paused, and suddenly, instruments began playing in the background - instruments that Teresa had never heard before.

"The Sexy Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku!" Naruto began hopping on one foot. Teresa's smile grew slightly malicious as she nearly electrocuted him.

Of course, that was when Yoma chose to attack, and Teresa spent the rest of the night defending Naruto's body, which appeared to be in a coma, from being eaten.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"So you have two of the six. The next two are the Shadow Clone and the Lightning Release: Shadow Clone. The Shadow Clone is the technique that I was most famous for. As a demon container, I was able to create thousands of solid clones that, while they dispersed if they were hit, could kill opponents with the same skill that I did. Observe."

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Eighteen Narutos appeared out of nowhere, and Teresa jumped back in surprise, immediately killing one by slicing through it with the Kiba.

"You see, the strength of a Shadow Clone", said all the remaining Narutos in a very disconcerting unison, "is for training purposes. You remember, perfectly, better than if you did it yourself, every single thing that a Clone has done. This is both very useful and very dangerous. Since we don't have demons to make sure our minds don't crack, dispersing too much at once will be result in information overload, and potentially fry your brain."

"Each one of the Claymores that they carry have all the hardness and consistency of your old Claymore. But, if you made clones, they wouldn't share the same Lightning abilities nor the single-cut properties of the Kiba. That is, for all intensive purposes, a magical sword. The Claymore, while well made, isn't enchanted, or seal."

"_Sealed_. I understand. It's just one handseal?" Teresa asked, chewing daintily on the leg of a pheasant for breakfast.

"Yes, the Ram. It will be very easy to do without handseals, and even easier without the words."

Considering Naruto had gotten it in minutes himself, Teresa getting it in two tries was understandable. What wasn't understandable was her getting it without handseals or words in two tries. On the bright side, it took the rest of the morning and three additional hours for her to learn the Lightning Release Clone. Kakashi did say it was an A-ranked jutsu, and while Naruto had gotten it on his first try, he had used the Shadow Clone more than any other ninja in history, while Teresa had only learned it several minutes before.

"The true strength of the Lightning Clone is that when you defeat it, it'll explode into enough electricity to put people", Naruto glared at the ground in shame, "into comas."

"I understand. What techniques are next?"

"The Shunshin, and the Lightning Shunshin."

**The Seal and the Sword**

Naruto felt vindicated. Teresa had more trouble with the Shunshin than anything before, spending hour after hour trying to use the body flicker, as he explained the mechanics again and again.

"Now, to use the body flicker, you must target an exact area, then force Chakra out of your back and your legs to push yourself through the air very, very quickly. If there's something between you and the target, you must steer the body flicker as you move."

Teresa grit her teeth. It was impossible. The distance that she was able to move, four feet, gave her tunnel vision, and she had no way of seeing where she was going after that.

"I don't understand. How do you see things while-"

"You don't. You have to have situational awareness. When you can feel the differences in terrain, Body Flicker will be very, very nature. Perhaps I should teach you the Body Repl-"

"No, I used to be the best sensor in the Organization. There's no reason why I can't learn that again."

Naruto thought the sentiment was admirable - the amount of sheer perseverance that she showed was even more than his when he was younger. He wondered for a moment how he became so unmotivated, then remembered that he had no one to be motivated for anymore, and lost himself in memories again.

_Bam_.

Teresa had slammed into a tree that she was trying to circumvent, leaving a huge hole in it. It was a surprise that her armor wasn't dented in any way, but a bruise was quickly forming on her face.

"Send some Chakra to your wound, it'll heal a bit faster, and it'll hurt a lot less."

_Bam_.

Teresa had hit a Yoma this time, and it now had a Teresa shaped hole in it.

"That's disgusting", Naruto commented, as Teresa burned it all off (including the still-living Yoma) with Lightning Strike armor, and resolved to take a bath as soon as possible.

**The Seal and the Sword**

When Teresa and Naruto walked into Godahl town, Naruto experienced, for the first time in many years, the fear that people associated with Jinchuuriki in his homeland.

There were glares and fearful glances aplenty when the villagers realized that Naruto was carrying a Claymore, complete with the famous insignia at his waist, but when Teresa decided that she didn't care what others thought, and removed her cloak in the middle of the street, showing the armor and the Thunder Fang, a much more elaborate sword than the Claymores, everyone sprang back as if they were cursed.

Naruto's face was stoic, and his face was buried in the Bible, while Teresa's head was held high, and a smile was on her lips. They looked for all the world like a team of Exorcists.

"We don't like your kind here!" shouted a group of armored men as they turned down the street.

Teresa didn't spare them a glance. Naruto continued reading about the Maccabbee brothers.

"Hey, Holy man, why are you travelling with a half-demon of all things?"

"While people may be partially evil in the narrowest definition of the word, it is the good in them that will give Saint Peter cause to open the Pearly Gates..." Naruto had not taken his face out of the book.

The men ignored him, but that was to be expected. It appeared that while everyone in this land went to church on Sundays (according to Teresa, at least), no one heeded the words of holy men. Naruto decided that this was true of nearly every culture he had observed.

"As we said, we don't want a silver-eyed..." the soldier trailed off when he finally had a glimpse into Teresa's eyes. "Are you not a Claymore?"

"Don't be silly", Naruto said. "My sword's a Claymore. She's Teresa."

"I hear that they can turn into humans to fool people into thinking they're not actually demons. Kill them! This town has been untainted for many years, and he must not be much of a holy man if he consorts with demons!"

The militia, which was mostly untrained farmers with swords, charged. Neither Teresa nor Naruto broke stride, and walked right past them, moving so slightly that it seemed as if they had not, creating a rather impressive effect. The men turned around, confused as to why they seemed to have disappeared, and realized that they had walked past them.

"I'm not allowed to kill humans", Teresa said to Naruto.

Naruto frowned. "Really? Not even bandits, or rapists? Or genocidal madmen?"

"I'm under the impression that the Organization herds Yoma toward those people, though my Handler disagrees."

Naruto could believe that the Organization did that. The more he heard about it, the less he liked it, though he supposed Teresa's opinion might have been slightly biased. "In that case, I'll just knock them out for you, and you can fantasize about gutting them with the Fang."

Naruto disappeared (at least it appeared so to the militia), and in several seconds, they were all on the ground with various head wounds.

"That's rather efficient", Teresa decided. She had been able to track Naruto, as he was moving at the speed of a less powerful member of the Organization, but the fact that he was able to do it without looking up from the Bible was nothing short of amazing. She decided that it was possibly connected to Naruto's speech about situational awareness when it came to the Body Flicker.

**The Seal and the Sword**

The two Handlers walked into a well-lit conference room. At first glance, it looked no different from any other business executive's meeting room, but each of the men and women seated at the table was dressed in black, most of them with sunglasses obscuring their eyes, or facemasks covering their mouths and noses.

"Orsay, report?" said the man seated at the head of the table. He wore a gold collar, and had silvering hair, though everyone knew that age was something that was never so obvious in this room.

"We were going to give a joint report on number One, but since I'm her Handler, it was decided that I would give all of it."

"Get on with it", the man waved his hand.

"We made contact twice. Through both encounters, she was seen with what we believe is a holy man. He was dressed in red and white robes."

"Oh, so she's decided to become religious? I fail to see how this makes a difference if she works efficiently."

"Normally, we wouldn't have cared. However, she has been taking suppressing pills constantly, as her eyes have changed back to their original color. She hasn't been using her Claymore, but another sword, while the man carries her Claymore. By all observations, he can carry it without noticing its considerable weight, to a degree that he carries it at his waist as opposed to his back. That's indicative of great strength, and, more importantly, training."

The Chief stared at them, as the entire Organization tried their best to put together the clues.

"Either he is some very powerful warrior who is instructing her, or she has found", Orsay's lips curled into a sneer, "a life-mate."

"That would be a first", his companion smirked.

"In the case that he is instructing the most powerful asset we have, he might not be adverse to teaching the others. From the files we have, we know that she is a very proud warrior, and would only accept training from someone who is substantially better than her. From the way you have described him, he must come from a tradition of Teutonic Knights, or even the remnants of the Templar forces."

"Surely you do not believe the myth of-"

"The Organization has only been in operation for five hundred years. Do you know why we are necessary, Orsay?" the Chief asked.

"To contain the Yoma population-"

"Yes, because the ones who protected the people before us are unable to do so anymore. They were disbanded, and thus, the Yoma overran the countries. If he truly is a Teutonic Knight, he would not be adverse to teaching our Assets to defend themselves. If he is a Templar remnant..." the Chief's face darkened for a moment.

"Kill him."

**The Seal and the Sword**

"This is a perfect time for me to teach you how to walk up walls!" Naruto said, rather brightly. "We are currently at a rest point, and since we generally don't have time to walk upwards as opposed to forwards. To walk up a wall, or trees, or anything that goes straight up, you must add enough Chakra to your feet so you can stick. Add too much, and we'll be paying a repair bill for the wall, and you'll land on your back. Add too little, and you'll be completely unable to walk upwards."

Naruto demonstrated, earning a raised eyebrow for his troubles as he walked around the walls and ceiling of the hotel room.

"I don't know why we're staying here anyway", Teresa said as she slowly removed her cape and her armor. Naruto couldn't help but stare from where he was on the ceiling, and a faint blush colored his cheeks. Teresa looked up. "You've been hanging upside down for too long. Come back down before all the blood rushes to your head."

Naruto was about to stammer a response when Teresa began to shimmy out of her armored skirt. He instantly dropped to the ground face forward, and succeeded in nearly knocking himself out. Teresa then began to remove her shirt.

Naruto jumped back in shock, and tried to squash the desire bubbling at his stomach.

"Would you like to have sex with me?" Teresa asked in the most deadpan voice she could manage.

"Are-are you j-joking?" Naruto's eyes bulged.

Teresa sighed. "Yes, you absolute _fool_." Then a tinge of bitterness leaked into her smile. "No one will ever rut with a Claymore anyway."

"But why? You're-you're beautiful", Naruto finished quietly.

"You think so?" Teresa challenged. "On each Claymore, there is a different... how do I put it? The Organization calls it a Stigmata. When you see it, it will immediately make me very, very unattractive. In fact, it is the reason that Claymore are never raped, despite the fact that they aren't allowed to kill humans."

"They called it the Trait", Naruto frowned. "The Trait, in the Elemental Countries. That was how you'd identify when someone was a Jinchuuriki. Observe."

Naruto let go of his immense control over the Youki remaining in his body, and his eyes grew more feral, the whiskers on his face became deeper, and the cerulean blue orbs slowly turned purple, then red. All of a sudden, he was Naruto again.

"What is yours?"

Teresa pulled up her shirt, exposing her abdomen to him, and she looked down in shame, then sprang back in shock. "It's g-gone."

"Of course it's gone. There's no Youki running through you right now."

Naruto didn't expect her to throw her arms around him and sob into his shoulder for nearly a whole minute. After the minute was over, the tears were quickly wiped on the top of his robe, and she was as stoic as ever.

"It was a patch of rotting flesh. It was... rather disgusting."

Naruto nodded sagely. Considering that the Trait was randomized, he thought it was lucky that Teresa hadn't had fetid claws before. He could understand, however, how someone who prided themselves on their beauty, as he had no doubt she did, it would have been utterly demoralizing. He hated how he looked when he used his Youki.

There were no words spoken as she walked around the walls and ceiling, but they both knew that they had reached the point of no return when it came to trust.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"Now that you can use the Shunshin, and flicker around, I'm going to teach you the substantially more difficult versions - the Lightning Shunshin."

"_Version_. What makes it different from the Leaf or the Mist Shunshin that you showed me?"

Naruto repeated the corrected sentence several times. "The Lightning Shunshin doesn't use Lightning to distract you. It gets rid of the tunnel vision."

"You mean I learned all of that for-"

"No. Learning to be situationally aware when you use the Shunshin is a skill that you must have to use the Lightning Shunshin. The way it goes about doing that lies within the fact you you charge each of your _neural synapses_ with Lightning."

"What are _neural synapses_?" Naruto discovered that Teresa wasn't all that bad at pronouncing Japanese.

"You know how we have veins for our blood, and pathways for our Chakra? There are pathways for the mind too - they're your nerves. They're nearly impossible to see, even if you dissect something, but when you touch, see, smell, you're using them. When you use the Lightning Shunshin, you overload the neurons that connect your brain to your spine, and your spine to your eyes, as well as expelling Lightning from each of your Chakra points, allowing your eyes to work as fast as your body. This was made to imitate the total-viewing ability of the Sharingan eye, and it was a complete success in several wars, before my Village learned how to do it too."

"How do I learn it?"

"Easy. Remember how you learned to feel your Tenkutsu? To discover something, you must sometimes take it away. Therefore, you must learn how to Shunshin with-", Naruto took out a blindfold.

A bit of despair found its way into Teresa's smile.

**The Seal and the Sword**

It was midday before Teresa woke. She had been using the Body Flicker with a blindfold for nearly five hours through the town, before Naruto found her bruised, mildly charred (from all the mishaps with the lightning) and passed out body leaning halfway in a well. When she did, Naruto discovered that she was able to use the Lightning Shunshin without the blindfold, and that she'd been trying to use the Lightning Shunshin with the blindfold, which had led to her problems.

"I don't think there's time to teach you Lightning Release Armor right now, if you want to continue moving, but if we stay in the town for another week, you'll probably be able to learn it. In any case, after you kill the Awakened, and you get your next assignment, then we'll have time on the road. It's much more difficult than the Shunshin. To put it in perspective, it is an S-ranked technique. The Lightning Shunshin would have been considered low A rank. It took me nearly a week to learn a high A ranked when I was several years more experienced with Ninjutsu than you are."

Teresa thought for a moment, then decided that they'd confront Rosemary before she committed herself to learning a technique that was, for all intensive purposes, able to make a warrior into a legend, so difficult that Naruto, who knew more about Ninjutsu than she thought she ever would, could not even perform it to show her.

As they climbed the Godahl Plateau, Naruto read the Bible out loud to calm her nerves. They crested a ridge, and were suddenly on the summit when-

_Clang_.

Naruto had parried Rosemary's claymore with his own. Teresa quickly drew the Thunder Fang.

"Your boy toy bites!" she exclaimed in glee.

"I'm not her boy toy. I'm her teacher." Naruto made several extremely quick, and rather artful slashes. Teresa counted nearly thirty loud reports from when the claymores made contact.

"This is my fight, Naruto", Teresa said quietly. Naruto nodded, and Shunshined next to her. The extremely powerful slice that Rosemary had wanted to cross-section him with made a deep gouge in the Plateau.

"Fast", Rosemary said, feeling rather out of her depth all of a sudden. She sniffed the air. "There's no Yoma coming from you. When are you impersonating Teresa?"

"I'm not impersonating her. I've discovered a way to suppress my inner Yoma rather completely."

"So the Rosario project finally bore fruit?" Rosemary asked, rather intrigued.

"No, my Handler mentioned a while ago that it had been scrapped."

"They never tell us anything", Rosemary sneered. "The Organization's always kept us in the dark. You know as well as I."

"Have you Awakened?" Teresa asked, changing the subject.

Naruto observed the other woman. There were flecks of gold in her silver eyes, and a feral feeling that came from her. She had shorter hair than Teresa, he noted, as he compared them. Teresa was easily more beautiful - for all intensive purposes, she was ethereal. But if he hadn't met Teresa, he would have said the same about Rosemary. He wondered if all Claymore were such.

"She has", Naruto responded, when Rosemary didn't say anything for a while.

Rosemary hissed at him, and Naruto could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

"I never thought you would, of all people. You always said you hated the ecstasy, that it made you weak."

"Ecstasy?" Naruto wondered aloud.

"When we use our Yoma, there is a certain addictive blend of pain and pleasure that floods our veins. I have no experiences to compare it to, but it's the closest thing to sex that most Claymore have." Teresa's voice had become rather monotone, and Naruto could tell that she did not enjoy the line of questioning.

"You would not believe how very invigorating the transformation is", Rosemary smirked. "I writhed for days, and every so often, I would call out your name, Teresa. Do you know why?"

Naruto was rather disturbed. While he had made multiple partial transformations, they had never felt... good. And he had never asked for Sasuke when he transformed, unless it was to kill him.

"Because I hate you, Teresa. The demon, it is a creature of need, of dominance", Rosemary's eyes flashed maliciously. "I needed to conquer you, to destroy you. To _fuck_ you. To have you scream in pain while I rip you to shreds, and take you completely. Do you know why it has to be you, Teresa?"

Rosemary's eyes had turned entirely gold at this point. "Because you took what was rightly mine away from me! I was the greatest warrior that the Organization had, and then you waltzed out of the facility and proceeded to defeat me in minutes. It was the greatest humiliation that anyone could have thought of. And each time, when I had believed I'd become faster and stronger than you, you beat me down again. Wearing that damnable smile of yours, like you are now!" she roared. She had begun the transformation into a Yoma - her veins were visible, and she had sprouted the beginnings of multiple appendages.

"So I'm going to kill you, and ravage your still living body. And I'll make _him_ watch!"

Naruto's face stayed in the Bible, despite the fact that his right hand had never left the Claymore.

Rosemary finished her transformation at an accelerated rate, growing a rather large tail and turning her appendages into legs. Her eyes sank into her head, and took on a rather decayed look. Her torso, however, remained that of a woman's.

"Please do remember I'm not a god of some sort, and I can't heal injuries that will kill you immediately. Be care-"

Teresa began engaging the Awakened Being.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Well, that wasn't that hard to write. I'm currently obsessed with Claymore, so it's made it much easier. I always associated Teresa with Lightning anyway...

Any teaching materials for Naruto that Teresa might want to learn? The attacks that she'll have are going to reflect her personality, cold and majestic. She's not going to be summoning toads, or turning land into swamps.

As to Mary Sue-ing, she seems like one right now. There are going to be a chain of events that close the gap between her and the rest of the Claymore... Remember that Naruto's running from poli- Hunter nin squads...


	3. The Sound of Thunder

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Claymore. I do love Naruto, and I definitely love Teresa, though.

Author's Note: Welcome to the World of the Plastic- Err, that's not quite right for this chapter introdution. *subliminal Gorillaz album advertising made less subliminal* Right then. I hope everyone likes this so far. This story is very, very planned out. Like, ten, fifteen chapters worth of planned out.

Check our my C2 at www. fanfiction. net/ community/ Breaking_ the_ Boundaries_ between_ Worlds_ Good_ Crossovers/ 93077/

Author's Note: The Swirling Blade Kenjutsu style's Ninth Kata is the use of a continual circular cut that slashes once per wrist movement. For each wrist movement, the hilt of the sword is gripped between two different fingers with Chakra-enhanced speed, allowing short, deep cuts to be made. The use of the Swirling Blade's Ninth Kata with a very long sword will force the opponent to be much faster than Naruto, meaning that while Naruto's Kenjutsu is close to nonexistent, it would take a master to defeat him without incurring damage. Naruto with a Kunai, or even his bare hands would destroy Naruto with a sword. As would any of the Single Digit Warriors.

Another longass Author's Note: Power levels. Jesus, I hate this. But I feel that this is necessary.

A Genin would not be able to kill any Claymore. They would be able to kill a weak Yoma with their tricksies, but ultimately, it'll be a very dangerous battle. I'm not talking about like, Gaara, or Naruto, because they were clearly not on a genin level.

A Chunin would stand a chance against the lower 47-30 Claymores, and be around as strong and as fast as a normal Yoma, as well as having Kunai, and Exploding Tags, and Fireball Jutsu.

A Jonin would be able to fight a 30-10 Claymore on equal footing with all his tricks, though the Claymore will possibly be faster - not counting Elite Jonin like Maito Gai, who is faster than S-rank missing nin, or Hatake Kakashi, who has a Sharingan.

It would take a Sannin, or a Kage to fight the majority of the Single Digits, but at that point, the chances of a ninja winning will be much higher. There are so many tricks that ninja have that Claymore don't. However, if the ninja were to fight an Awakened Being, it would be an experience nearly equal to fighting the One Tailed or Two Tailed. If they know what they're doing, they'll be able to subdue/kill it.

Do remember Teresa is considered the most powerful Claymore of all time. (Manga 110)

Naruto was an mphm-ranked missing nin for several years, and knows mphm and mphm and Rasenshuuriken. Hehe, gotta censor myself. Can't give it all away. Heh. But ultimately, if it were a Kenjutsu match, Claymore would wtfpwn the large, large majority of Shinobi. Unless it's a Swordsman of the Mist, or the Green Beast of Konoha, in which the footing would be more equal.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Teresa was suddenly at a loss as to why their claymores were so heavy. She suspected that it was because the manufacturing process didn't allow for such strong steel to be forged conventionally. The Thunder Fang had definitely been made with Chakra, and possibly had not even touched an anvil.

However, the claymore that Rosemary was using did hold up rather admirably against the Thunder Fang.

Naruto was once again perched on his (he smiled slightly) claymore. He supposed that the Thunder Fang belonged to Teresa at this point.

Then he did a double take. "What type of metal can match the abilities of a Lightning Chakra longsword?" he asked no one in particular. "I've got to find out more about these Claymore..."

Back on the battlefield, Teresa was using her superior speed to dodge most of Rosemary's blows. She caught a blow that she was unable to dodge with the edge of the Kiba, and realized that it wouldn't cut through the claymore, though it had no problems cutting through a rather hard carapace, and burning the brackish purple blood.

Her arm stung from the force of the hit, and when she skidded back, her cape ripped. She performed a Shunshin, appearing several meters just out of range, and contemplated her course of action.

"You should really just destroy it by any means necessary. I think the Yoki's increasing", Naruto said. He tapped on the Claymore experimentally. "I want to study her Claymore."

Teresa nodded, and proceeded to fire hundreds of Lightning Lances at the Awakened Being. Each one struck true, and in an instant, it was writhing on the ground, with all of its nerves shorted out. In an instant, it had been cut to pieces with the Thunder Fang.

"Now, I just have to dig through that mess", Naruto stared at the unappetizing remains of Rosemary, "to find her damn Claymore."

In several minutes, after Naruto burned the remains of Rosemary with a Grand Fireball and retrieved her Claymore, they were headed down the Plateau, Teresa carrying Naruto as she jumped off as to not arouse suspicion from the figure of Orsay that he saw from a mile off.

"I could get used to being in your-" Naruto suddenly turned a bright shade of crimson. The infuriating smile informed him that she had heard him.

She landed gracefully. "Orsay", she greeted. Naruto's face was in his Bible again, and Orsay was smirking at the sight of Teresa carrying someone else.

"What happened to your uniform?" He paused, and for once, a worried look made its way to his face, "It couldn't be... you actually allowed it to awaken?"

"Stop with the jokes. There's no way I could have finished it safe and sound if I'd let the previous number One awaken", she smiled encouragingly at him, but it lacked any sort of kindliness. Orsay shivered. "We ran onto several Yoma on the way back."

"Did you finish the clean-up?"

"Yeah." Her smile grew slightly, as if she were sharing a secret. "Her final moments were... fittingly splendid for a former number One."

Orsay stared at the girl, and the man reading a Bible, in disbelief and more than a little bit of fear.

"Trust me!", her tone rolled, almost sensually. "That we're so unharmed is proof of it." Her eyes sparkled in hidden glee.

"Okay", he breathed in, accepting the fact that maybe she did do as she was told. "Let's go. The next job is waiting."

"Aye-aye", she replied, malice and a unique type of sexuality dancing on her lips, "Boss." The sparkle never left her eyes.

Orsay wondered if she'd been a true demon in a previous life.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"The Lightning Release Armor..." Naruto paused for a while. "You know how you channel your Lightning Chakra into your eyes to prevent tunnel vision?"

"Of course, I've known the technique for two days, and I've practiced it-"

"That's the principle behind the Lightning Release Armor. I taught you the Surge to familiarize you with a large burst coming from each of your eight Chakra gates. I taught you the Lightning Strike Armor to familiarize you with wrapping Chakra around your body. I taught you the Lightning Clone for you experience exactly what it feels like to be made of the element. I taught you the Lightning Shunshin to show you the first step in utilizing the Lightning Release Armor."

"The first step?" Teresa's eyes widened. "But that would mean you want me to-"

"Send a continuous stream of Lightning Chakra through all your neurons, as in every single one, allowing you to both perceive and move at speeds that equal the Shunshin as long as you have Chakra. I'm warning you now, though. There was only two men capable of it in history. Of the eight people that the second man taught, none were capable. One of those people is standing in front of you. It needs you to have as much of the right type of personality as anything..." Naruto drew in his breath through his teeth.

"When I was in the Elemental Countries, each of the Five Great Nations subscribed to a different philosophy. Konoha believed in the Will of Fire, believing that courage and camaraderie would triumph over all else. Suna, the land of Sands, believed in the Eloquence of Wind, believing that with enough pressure, anything could be won. Kiri, the land of Mist, didn't have a fancy phrase, but the idea was to utterly and ruthlessly destroy their targets. Iwa, the land of Stone believed in the Resolve of Earth, thinking that the more bodies piled up, the most perseverance, the higher chance whatever it was would be accomplished. Kumo, the land of Cloud, where the Lightning Release Armor hails from, believed in the Truth of Thunder."

He thought of the Raikage, the head of Kumo, and the man's last words, and then grasped Teresa by the shoulders. "The Truth of Thunder is the belief that if you strike fast, hard, and for the right reasons, you will always strike true! It is not the philosophy of a shinobi, but that of a senshi, of a warrior. _That_ is why the eight ninja that learned how to release the Lightning Armor could _never_ do so. We are, at heart, cowardly, backstabbing, and _disgusting_. Not anything like a Claymore. You, _you_ are as pure and as beautiful as the driven snow. The only thing you raise your blade is to are Yoma, creatures that live to prey on the weak! Of all people, it is you in whom the Truth of Thunder will live."

In the firelight, Naruto's face had taken on an ethereal glow, and Teresa, for the first time in her life, felt the stirrings of passion from deep within her.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"Numbers Five, Six, Seven, Eight and Nine."

"Present", growled Elda, "All of us are here."

"Thank you, Number Five", said one of the figures seated on a throne of sorts. They had recently changed venues from a recently deserted castle to a group of caves in the Eastern lands. Their current residence was a ruin, but there were very many small caves that could house both the training facility, the research laboratories and residence for the warriors.

"You are to locate Teresa of the Faint Smile."

"Impossible", Elda gasped. "None of us can-"

"Do not interrupt me, Number Five. Your target is not the number One of our Organization, but rather, her travelling companion. If he is willing to train our troops as he trained Teresa, you will relieve him from her side, and bring him here. Otherwise, kill him. You have two months to prepare for this mission. We would like to observe them for a while."

"What if she-"

"Teresa will not interfere, or she will face execution", the man said softly.

"Who has the ability to execute her?" Elda wondered aloud.

At this, no one responded.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"See, the problem is that I can't sense the Youki of Yoma anymore. I have to learn how to do so from scratch. Again."

"So I suppose I'll be your eyes when you complete this mission."

They walked side by side, their elbows touching once in a while, as she sent lightning down different nerves once in a while, causing her to blur out of sight, or a glowing blue aura to form around her.

"It's strange, because sensing human auras is very easy for me now, but telling the difference between Chakra and Youki is very difficult."

"You have to reach out and feel the difference. When there's no bloodlust involved, the Youki is still coarser. After a while, they'll take on colors, and you'll be able to tell the difference very easily. I suppose I'm a bad example because I have blend."

"_A_ blend. You can tell the difference really easily though."

"A blend. Because I have a blend. A blend. Yes, I can tell the difference." Naruto unsealed Rosemary's claymore from a scroll and began playing with it. Teresa's stayed strapped to his waist.

"What is a Claymore made of?"

Teresa opened her mouth to answer, but the lapse of concentration fried a tree she had brushed past.

"Whoah, keep it under control!" Naruto shouted, putting several feet between them in an instant.

Teresa made a 'come here' gesture with her forefinger and winked. Naruto blushed, but went back to walking next to her. "I don't know what it's made of. I've never encountered a metal like it."

Naruto ran a finger over it, trying to feel for a rhythm that everything of the earth possessed, his eyes briefly flashing yellow with natural energy.

"It's- it's not made of metal", he exclaimed.

"What?" Teresa asked sharply. "What do you mean it's not made of metal? Of course it's made of metal-"

"Let me rephrase that. It's not made of a natural metal. There's something else mixed into it that isn't carbon. Sure, there's some metal, but anything of carbon and metal resonates with the earth when you apply a certain Chakra frequency to it. That's one of the first things I learned when I had to deal with knives made of metallic poisons and neutralize them."

"Metallic poisons like arsenic or-"

"Yes, yes. But that's not the point. There's something in this that's very, very unnatural. It feels dead, in the way moonstone feels dead, or Yoma feel-"

Naruto abruptly stopped. "Those bastards."

"What? The Organization? That's established. What did they do this time?" Teresa was genuinely curious, and barely smiling now.

"I'm relatively certain that the reason it feels so unnatural is because there's a radioactive calcium compound in here."

"What's a-"

"Don't worry about the jargon. It's a fancy way of saying Yoma bones. A mix of partially-living Yoma Bones and steel. There's a living Yoma that's capable of instant regeneration. That's why this never, ever dents or chips."

They both glanced at the two Claymore in mild shock. "That's sort of disgusting", Teresa was smiling again.

"That it is..." she trailed off.

It appeared that Teresa had lost all her concentration again, and had zapped him multiple times while attempting the Lightning Release Armor.

As they settled to rest for two or three hours before walking into the next town, with Teresa leaning against her sword and Naruto laying on his beside her, his head at the hilt of the claymore.

"I understand now."

Naruto sat up so quickly his spine popped, and he had to send Chakra to fix it. "No. You couldn't have figured it out that fast. The Raikage took ten years to..."

"No, I mean the Truth of Thunder. Why it's superior to most other warrior's philosophies. There's precision. Perfection. There's _reason_."

Naruto smiled. "Unfortunately, I will never truly understand it as you do. The Will of Fire runs too deep in my veins. I don't believe it will ever leave."

"Your loss", Teresa smiled, in a way only she could.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"The man wearing the grey vest, the man in the brown jacket, the woman with the earrings next to the monk, and the three people crowded around the fruit cart, but not the fruit vendor. Oh, and the one holding the little girl is much stronger than the other five. I'll get the one in the vest and the woman, she's Awakened, I think."

"There are two Awakened and five Yoma here?"

"Two Awakened, two winged, and three normal ones."

They walked into the square. This was their eighteenth mission together, and they'd actually earned a name among the human populace. _The Seal and the Sword_. They were believed to be the Organization's new breed of warriors, ones that weren't half-Yoma (due to their normal eyes, and Naruto's darker blond hair). They strangely hadn't met a single other Claymore on their travels, just an irate Orsay who never interacted with Naruto.

"Seal!" Naruto shouted, referring to the speed at which they 'put away' a Yoma's life, and they both burst into a Shunshin. Naruto's Shunshin wound Teresa's old claymore through the neck of two of the weakest Yoma, and straight into the chest of the weaker Awakened Being.

"N-no way. I was the Number Twenty of my generation. I should have seen you-"

Naruto decapitated her by channeling a burst of Wind chakra through the blade, expanding it to triple the size.

Teresa had decapitated the three by the fruit stand during her Lightning Shunshin, which allowed for more accuracy than the general one that Naruto had used, but instead of killing the man with the child, she stopped moving several feet in front of him.

"Do you think you can use a child as a shield?"

Before the Awakened Yoma could respond, mcuh less transform, he had been rendered into exactly sixty six pieces - Teresa had made around forty cuts.

"Good work", Naruto stared at the remains, which had landed on the little girl, whistling.

The little girl stared at Teresa unmoving, her hair obscuring her eyes.

In an instant, Naruto and Teresa were gone. They headed to the closest hotel once again, where Teresa managed to put her foot through a wall while trying to maintain a latent internal current while walking up the plaster. "This is the key to it. If I can control exactly how much Chakra is released while shooting Lightning through all of my neural pathways, I'll be able to manifest a continuous stream of lightning armor that will be so dense that it'll be sheet thin, and a see-through blue, and literally cannot be dispelled, unlike the Lightning Strike armor, because the current in my neurons will immediately generate a continuous current, stopping anything from getting through, no matter what it is, by design."

"You _have_ figured it out", Naruto said in no small amounts of awe. Teresa began undressing again, and he blushed, looking away.

Suddenly, she stood up. "I don't want to stay here. I don't like the color of the walls." In truth, the strange shade of pink grated Naruto's nerves too.

"Let's leave, then."

Teresa pulled her sword out of the space between the floorboards, and Naruto pulled his out of the wall. "You're paying for that", Teresa gestured at the hole, smiling.

"I guess I am", Naruto said, smiling back, attempting to imitate her, but failing miserably. His grin had become full-blown when the wind came through the window, and her hair swirled gently.

They stared out the window.

"It's within our nature to be alone, isn't it?" Teresa asked, the sun shining in her eyes.

"Yes. It is." Naruto replied, his forehead protector, which was tied around his neck once again, glinting. "But I like this better."

Teresa's smile widened, and for once, it reached her eyes.

"We'll stay here for a while", Naruto decided. She nodded.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Teresa's hands flew through the thirty eight seals. "Lightning Release Armor."

"N-nooo way", Naruto gaped. It was their second day in the hotel room.

A cloud of what seemed to be a slightly bluish static wrapped around her, and small bursts of lightning lanced its way around the inside of the 'static'.

Naruto knew better. That was no static. That was electricity so dense that it lost its solidity, and had become an electromagnetic sort of plasma, capable of nullifying all but one of his attacks.

He swung Teresa's old claymore, now his, at her, but it glanced off even before it got near the Armor. He swung it again, pumping a huge amount of Chakra into his muscles, but even then, it had just reached the Armor before he received a shock he thought he'd never feel again.

"Argh..." he breathed softly as the fourteen megavolts of electricity fought his Chakra for dominance, wreaking havoc on his nervous system, and he sank to his knees. Teresa disengaged the technique immediately, and when the resistance disappeared, Naruto's Chakra flared, cracking everything but the swords in the room. Teresa was thrown back several feet.

"Sorry about that. I forgot how much of a punch that packed."

"At least neither of us are in a", Teresa paused to smile brightly, "coma."

Naruto groaned, picking up the scatter objects and righting them, while looking helplessly at the bed, tables and chair all of which had been split in half by his Chakra wave. "I guess I'm paying for this too, right?"

"Of course", Teresa said, smiling cheerfully. Naruto realized that he was able to tell the difference between twenty of Teresa's smiles by that point, though he was sure he hadn't been exposed to all of them yet.

"When the Raikage died, he was able to activate the Lightning Release Armor with just the Ram seal. Considering it took him a decade to learn it, I suppose you won't need either that, or the words. When you can activate it while in motion, while fighting, without prompting, I'll teach you the offensive half of Lightning Jutsu."

"Fair enough. I'll get it in a day", Teresa smirked. Naruto just shook his head as they walked out of the inn, paying for the damages.

They passed the square again, and a man, mostly likely the village's leader, walked up to Teresa.

"Here's all we've collected", he said, presenting Teresa with what must have taken the entirety of the two days to her.

"I don't need it", she smiled, rather cruelly. "Not that pitiful sum."

Naruto didn't like it much when she was cruel, but he never complained.

"Eh?" the mayor's eyes widened.

"The request for a Claymore came from another village. If you had made it, it would have cost ten times that. And since there were seven Yoma, it would have been seven times _that_."

Naruto shook his head imperceptibly, warning her not to bait them too much. Her eyes flashed back, clearly conveying that she found it funny. Naruto nodded resignedly.

Suddenly, Teresa looked down. A girl had grabbed her by the tip of her cape.

_Oh no_, Naruto thought. _She hates being touched_.

_Whap_.

Teresa's left hand hit the girl lightly (for her), on the forearm, and the girl tumbled to the ground, admit whispers from the people around them, and then shocked noises as they realized the girl had landed on her face.

"Who's this?" Teresa's smile widened, and the malice was apparent. Naruto took a calming breath, hoping the girl wouldn't be as stupid as to touch her again. "Isn't that the daughter of the last Yoma I killed? Is she looking to avenge her father?" The malice in her smile grew.

Naruto shook his head again, rather noticeably, but Teresa ignored him. The crowd looked from him to her.

"No, she isn't from around here", a brave man finally spoke up. "And we don't think she's related to that Yoma."

"What do you mean?" Teresa asked, staring at the girl on the floor.

"The child can't speak, so we don't know for sure, but it seems that she knew he was a Yoma", the man paused. "He forced her to follow him, and they just happened to come here."

Teresa narrowed her eyes. "How do you know that if she can't speak?"

"Well you see..." the man hesitated. "Her body is covered in scars, from being beaten many times."

Teresa's eyes widened very slightly. Naruto closed his eyes and pursed his lips. He knew exactly how the little girl would react. He had once been somewhat like that, refusing to let go of the third Hokage, his Sarutobi-jiji, after getting beaten as a kid.

"I see. She was just the creature's toy. She thinks of me as a savior, does she?" Teresa frowned, her smile gone from her lips. "Sorry, but I didn't come here to save you." Her voice was almost kind, but Naruto detected the note of derision easily. "Killing Yoma is just my job. _Don't_ misunderstand."

Naruto's eyes remained closed, and he shook his head continuously, hoping that the situation wouldn't turn out exactly like he thought it would.

It was worse. The girl jumped up off the ground, and grasped Teresa by the thigh, burying her face into Teresa's cape and armored skirt.

"No... don't", Naruto whispered, but even he didn't know who he was speaking to. The whispers increased.

"_What_... are you doing?" Teresa asked, her face twisted into a frown.

_Whap._

Teresa's steel right boot shot out, slamming into the girl's stomach, and sent the little girl flying. Several villagers screamed as she skidded across the dirt and stone road.

"I told you to go away. I am _not_ your savior."

The girl stood up unsteadily, looking at her. Her eyes were green.

Naruto continued shaking his head.

"What's with her. Is she touched in the head?" Teresa asked.

"Eh?" the man responded, "No, but she was kicked around by the Yoma for so long that she closed herself off verbally and emotionally. She won't respond to anyone, or so we thought."

The girl took a step forward.

"Hey. Take one more step and I'll kick you for real this time. I know you're not deaf", Teresa said, looking away.

"Teresa... please..." Naruto whispered, but Teresa ignored him.

The girl hesitated. "The girl's gonna get killed", said a villager. "Sombody help her..." "Don't be daft! It's not worth getting involved. Besides, there's no one to take care of her." "The Yoma was the one that brought her here... If the Claymore wants to kick her to death, no one's going to stop her."

"Teresa..." Naruto trailed off, as the girl took a step forward. "Oh", he said. The little sound was laced with regret and resignation. His eyes were wide open now.

_Bam_.

Her foot moved three or four times as fast as it did the first time, and the girl shot off the ground as if she were a ball of some sort, landing with an ominous _whump_. Several villagers began to cry.

"You're wasting my time. I don't think the last Yoma was part of the request, but since I did as I pleased, I won't be charging anything. Happy? This is one lucky village", she finished, smiling. "I'll be off!" she said, rather cheerfully.

Naruto looked on horrified, but followed her.

Several minutes of silence later, she paused. "What?" she challenged, her smiling unmoving.

"There is no truth or justice in the humiliation of the innocent." His eyes were harder than she'd ever seen them.

She shrugged expressively. "There is no truth or justice in the world."

"There is Truth in Thunder", Naruto said, beginning to walk again.

As she followed, her hands flashed. "Lightning Release Armor."

Nothing happened, and she felt her arms drop to her side mutely.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Several hours later, they stopped suddenly and wordlessly. Even though they weren't speaking, the synchronity was still stuff that would make legends.

"She's followed us all the way", Teresa remarked.

"I know", Naruto said, rather hollowly. He couldn't bring himself to actually hold a grudge against Teresa for more than several hours. "Please don't..."

"I don't have to justify my actions to you", she said.

"You don't", he said. "I'm not asking you to. I'm just begging you not to..." he trailed off. "Never mind. D-do as you please." His voice was sincere, but it was clear that he was doing everything he could to keep himself from weeping.

Teresa disappeared into the night rather suddenly as the girl got closer to the small campfire. She held the Thunder Fang against the girl's shoulder blade. A slight slip would have rent the girl asunder, but Teresa's hands had never slipped, not even when she started, at the age of six.

"By the way, there are some very faint signatures in the-" Naruto stopped suddenly, realizing that Teresa was gone. "Well..."

"I should praise you for having the strength to follow me this far", Teresa said, thinking of the twenty eight miles they had traversed, "but I don't like people tagging along after me." She hoped that Naruto wouldn't hear her. She didn't mind him much.

"Like I told you before, killing Yoma is my job. I didn't kill him for your sake. And I don't need a... _pet_", she said, sneering.

The girl's eyes widened. "Would you prefer I end it right here?"

Very suddenly, a shape dropped from the branches. Teresa sprang back easily. "A Yoma? It can't be", she frowned. "I didn't feel anything at all-" Another shape moved behind her, and the flat of Teresa's blade smacked against its temple.

"A human?" she wondered. A hand grabbed the little girl by the shoulder, and on instinct, she lopped it off with the Kiba.

The man screamed and screamed. "This is bad", she decided.

"Not really. I haven't killed a bandit in nearly eight months. That's several months before I met you. Not many bandits in the Ottomans, and barely any around here", came Naruto's voice. His head was buried in his Bible, and his claymore leaned against his left shoulder.

"It's the Seal and the Sword!"

"They _do_ call us that!" Naruto said, rather pointedly. "Just because I think our instant kills on Yoma resemble the art of Sealing objects away-"

"Not now, Naruto", Teresa said. "There's company around." She was much more relaxed, realizing that Naruto was, in fact, allowed to kill human beings.

"We've got nothing worth stealing. You'd better see to your friend here. He's losing lots of blood."

"So what if he dies", came an arrogant drawl. "Never thought I'd meet a Silver-eyed witch around here. And a mighty fine woman at that."

"Careful boss, they're dangerous-"

"I don't care", he smirked. "I've heard that her kind have a law against killing people."

"Yeah. Not really though", Naruto smirked back, ripping off a man's throat with an outstretched hand, which also held his Bible. "Oh dear, I hope I didn't stain the pages. I've had this for a while."

Everyone but Teresa sprang back in alarm.

"Now, I seriously don't want to kill so many people around an impressionable child, and I really, really don't want to stain my Bible anymore. After all, thou shalt not kill", he said, mockingly. Teresa gave him several grudging points for showmanship. "But I never really liked that Commandment", he finished, sinking the tip of his finger into another man's chest, and ripping a spleen out.

"Eww", he said, wiping his hand against a tree, and dropping the spleen. "You best take them and go."

Several men screamed, and most of them ran off, but two or three of the braver ones picked up the body, and another two carried the man without a hand and the man without a spleen away.

"I won't forget this!" shouted the man without a hand.

"Yes you will", Naruto said, rather cheerfully, as he aimed a small slice of wind chakra into the man's eye. It sped directly the the center of his brain, and then expanded, leaving a bloody mist in the place of his head. The man carrying him screamed and ran away as fast as he could.

"Well..." Naruto said.

"You better go too", Teresa said, speaking to the little girl. "You're not wanted. You know what type of monsters we are. I'm not a babysitter."

Naruto nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry to say it, kid. If it helps, I'll give you some money."

The girl ignored him.

Teresa shrugged, and they began walking again.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Teresa soon found out that she had only learned defensive Lightning Jutsu, and the two types were very different.

"Boar, Ram, Snake, Horse, Dragon", Naruto demonstrated. "Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!" A huge glob of lightning appeared between his hands, and it lanced back and forth. "The more Chakra you use, the larger the shock. This requires good control, but I believe that you're adequate for this, if you were able to use the Lightning Re- Shunshin."

They never talked about the Lightning Release Armor anymore. She'd try it once, every night, but there seemed to be something missing from it. Teresa mastered the Electromagnetic Murder after several hours, managing to use it with neither handseals nor words by the time the sun rose.

"She's still following us. Pity this is the end of the line for her", Teresa smiled. It was clear that she didn't think it was a pity at all. She jumped of a very long drop, and Naruto followed. She landed on her feet; he landed on all fours.

"No, she wouldn't!"

Naruto turned around to see the girl crashing down the cliff face.

"My God", he said. "I just used the Lord's name in vain", he frowned, then rushed over to the prone body.

"She's alive", he determined in just a second, after seeing the rising and falling of her back.

"Damn it! We can't just leave her here now", Teresa shrugged.

Naruto looked at her sharply.

Teresa turned away, partially in embarrassment. Naruto blinked. He didn't know Teresa could be embarrassed. "The bandits will come for her, and the Organization will say it's my fault she died."

"Okay", Naruto said, carefully making sure his tone was neutral. Not good enough. Teresa still shocked him with a Lightning Lance.

Teresa grabbed the girl by the arm, and before Naruto could protest, flipped her into a small pond.

"You awake now, kid?" Teresa asked.

"Drink some of that water", Naruto explained from the side. "You're very dehydrated."

The girl ignored him, and stared at Teresa with such longing in her eyes that Naruto nearly took a step back.

"What are you waiting for? Drink!" Teresa said, and the girl instantly began filling herself with the water from the pond.

"And you stink too! Didn't anyone from the town wash off the Yoma blood from you? Better wash yourself and yours clothes thoroughly."

The girl tore off her clothing, and Naruto winced as he realized that her back was a rapidly yellow mass of bruise and cuts.

"I've seen better looking tumors", he winced. Teresa nodded once. She pulled a yam out of the ground and dunked it in the pond, washing off the dirt.

"You better eat something too." In an instant, at speeds that surprised both of them, the girl had shot out of the pond, looking rather freshened up, and grabbed the yam, quickly eating it as if it would be taken away if she didn't.

"It's like having a new pet", Teresa remarked. Naruto frowned at her.

Suddenly, the girl stopped eating.

"What's wrong?"

The girl held the yam forward.

Teresa chuckled. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine. It's for you." The girl frowned. "Really! Do you think I'm just being nice?" she asked, sounding genuinely encouraging.

"Little bit of a face heel turn you've done there, Teresa..."

Naruto was surprised that he hadn't been shocked, until he realized that Teresa had touched the ground. He tried to jump, but it was far too late. "Ahhh!" he screamed.

The girl giggled, and he shook his head bemusedly. "Suppose I deserved that..."

_Maybe better than a new pet_, Teresa smiled as she watched the girl's reaction to Naruto's unfortunate situation.

"Don't worry. I'll take you to the next village. If we left you here to starve, I'd never here the end of it, and they'll say it was my fault", Teresa said.

"Now get some sleep", she said, laying down. Naruto was drawn to her form like a firefly to a particularly strong light. "I won't run off while you're sleeping."

The girl fell asleep immediately, and Teresa ducked into the woods as Naruto watched.

"Lightning Release Armor!" The familiar cloud of electricity surrounded her. All was well.

**The Seal and the Sword**

When the girl woke, she saw neither Teresa nor Naruto, and began to panic.

"I brought you some breakfast. Are you still hungry?"

She turned around, and saw that Naruto was sitting crosslegged _on_ the pond, a whirlwind of leaves dancing in a merry symphony around him. She then saw Teresa walking out of a clump of trees, holding her sword and a rabbit.

She jumped at Teresa, wrapping her arms around her waist, and buried her face in Teresa's shirt.

"I told you I wouldn't run off. I don't lie. I don't have to, so believe what I tell you."

The girl began to sob. Teresa began to smile. Suddenly, she froze. Naruto was looking at her with a shit-eating grin that could mean only one thing. _I told you so_.

Naruto abruptly stood up on the water, the leaves dying down, and walked over to them. "We have around thirty miles to go. It's going to take two days no matter what, unless you want to carry her and run. We can afford to walk a bit slower. I have something you'd love to show you."

They began walking at a more sedate pace.

"The Chidori was a Jutsu invented by my sensei, Kakashi. He wanted to imitate my father's _Rasengan_!" he shouted suddenly, and slammed a ball of Chakra that had formed so suddenly that she only realized that it existed after his arm had begun to move. It entered a tree, and while the bark it touched only showed a slight spiral scorch mark, the rest of the tree became sawdust.

"The Chidori is a bit less impressive, but has around the same piercing strength. The premise is that you wrap your fingers in rather dense - not as dense as the Armor, mind you", he paused and enjoyed Teresa's smile, "but dense enough so that it'll be more solid than your Strike Armor."

"Ox, Rabbit, Monkey. Chidori!" Naruto closed his eyes, and darted forward as a ball of white formed over his hand. "This is a reverse-engineered Jutsu, remember that. The premise, according to my sensei, was to wrap your hand in a ball of Lightning Chakra until it's dense enough to maintain its own form. It will forcefully propel you forwards at a decent speed. I am unable to use the Lightning Shunshin, let alone the Lightning Release Armor, but if you channel lightning through your eyes, you'll be able to remove the most glaring weakness of this attack - the tunnel vision."

It was laughably easy compared to the Lightning Release Armor, and by noon, Teresa was darting around like a smiling blob of quicksilver, sinking her arms into rock faces and trees as if they were made of jelly. Amazingly, she was doing it without the use of handseals, which Kakashi had said was impossible.

"Have you gotten far with the sealless Lightning Release Armor?"

"Yes, I'm using a thirteen seal variant instead of the thirty eight. It's much, much faster now, and I don't need the name. The next step is the five seal."

"Well, I guess we can take a break from the Chidori to talk about... swords. Ever wish you had a second Claymore, or a second Thunder Fang?"

"No, not really", Teresa smiled, knowing that he was setting the stage for a dramatic introduction of a new Jutsu.

"Oh", Naruto said, looking sort of crestfallen. "In any case, the Chidori is a low A-rank technique. There is a low S-rank equivalent of it, the Lightning Cutter, which sheathes your hand in Lightning Chakra that's just shy of being dense enough to become a plasma cloud like the Armor. My sensei actually did cut a Lightning bolt with it, and I've heard the story so many times that I will never tell it, but I will give you tips. I don't actually know how to perform this technique either, but from the discussions between sensei and one of his colleagues, I've deduced that he double wraps his chakra, starting with two points instead of one, and-" Naruto looked rather helpless. "I really don't understand it though, not being Lightning natured by design-"

"No, I understand perfectly." She formed the same handseals, but kept her hands further apart, but nothing happened.

"It's strange. I know it's supposed to form, but it seems that something's sucking it away before it is."

Naruto stared at her stance. "When Kakashi-sensei did it, he aways held his hands very close to the ground without touching it. I think there's some sort of natural phenomenon."

"Oh, that makes a lot of sense." The little girl watched in wonder as Teresa formed a Lightning Cutter after several tries and put it through a bunch of trees.

"Well, we've walked around fifteen miles. I think we should stop for a while", he said, glancing at the little girl meaningfully.

"Sure", Teresa said, not really caring. She had excelled at defensive Lightning Jutsu, but she _loved_ offensive Lightning Jutsu.

"Alright. The next two techniques are also related, slightly. They are the Lightning Dragon, and the Kirin." Naruto exhaled. "I know the first, and not the second, as with the Chidori. But first, I must teach you shape manipulation. The easiest way of doing that is with a pond. That's why I wanted to stop here." Naruto pointed.

"Water walking and tree-climbing, which you've been doing in hotel rooms, is the elementary example of shape transformation. Considering you are able to maintain voltage in your nerves while going up and down walls, you have enough control to walk on water. Just try it a bit."

_Splash_. Teresa sputtered and coughed as she spat water out.

_Splash_. _Splash_.

Teresa took a tentative step forward, and the water twisted, but held. She smiled, and took another step. _Splash_.

"Jiraiya-sensei was right. This _is_ really funny." Teresa glared at him, and sent a burst of lightning via Electromagnetic Murder at him, nearly sending him into another coma. The little girl pointed at giggled, but assumed another half-stoic, half-depressed expression when Teresa fell into the water again.

"I'm getting so very... _wet_. Maybe I should take off my shirt and pants. They're getting so uncomfortable." Teresa stared directly at Naruto as she began to pull off her clothing slowly.

"Eep!" Naruto squeaked, and immediately looked away.

"Did you just _squeak_?"

"No!" Naruto protested faintly, turning around. Teresa was completely naked. He squeaked again and turned away.

"Am I that ugly to look at?" she said quietly. Naruto immediately turned around.

"N-no. It's just that-" he blushed.

"Just what?"

"I-I really like you", Naruto confessed. "I really, really like you, and I know you probably don't like me like that, because I'm an idiot, and you're more experienced and more mature than me, and you could probably have a relationship with any straight male in the world, probably some of the gay ones, but I couldn't help but hope you mmph!"

Teresa pulled her lips away from his. "You're an idiot. _You_ belong to me."

For once, Naruto was reminded that he _was_ dealing with a half-demon, even if she was sealed. However, he had no complaints.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Well! That was a bit difficult, especially the verbatim Clare bits. I'm probably going to catch a bit of flak for that, from people who claim that Naruto's changed her enough so that she wouldn't...

I disagree. She owes Naruto, to an extent, for killing the last several Yoma the day they met. There's equivalent, or at least, semi-equivalent exchange. German and a guide for Sealing and Jutsu. Teresa views Naruto as _hers_, almost as an object. She cares for him as a person to the extent that it doesn't seriously hurt her, and she would possibly die with him, if she wouldn't die for him. She doesn't love him. You don't fall in love over the space of two or three months. Get real, people.

Not that this story's really 'real' in the first place.

I hope you all liked my depiction of the little girl. And the majority of you who know who she is, how do you think she'll react to Naruto and Teresa's budding relationship? I have most of what I want to do planned out already, as well as a specific attitude from her...

But if you logically convince me why this or that would be true in terms of her reaction, I might revise it.


	4. Confrontations and the Will of Fire

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Claymore. I do love Naruto, and I definitely love Teresa, though.

Hades252 2: Since you're anon, I'll answer here. Teresa meets Clare because her missions haven't changed, despite Naruto, leading to most canon events so far being applicable. And Naruto's always been a mildly submissive character - the Kyuubi running roughshod over him... Sakura beating the crap outta him... He's had experience with a demon that had little to no redeeming qualities. And Kyuubi wasn't a beautiful girl, either.

Check our my C2 at www. fanfiction. net/ community/ Breaking_ the_ Boundaries_ between_ Worlds_ Good_ Crossovers/ 93077/

Author's Note: All reviews, if they have content or questions, will be answered. That's my promise of a lifetime. Believe it! Just know that I'm not actually a fan of either Teresa or Naruto in my own fic, right now... That might change... might drastically change... might. I love tales of redemption. Please be patient with them... it's about to get a lot rougher.

**The Seal and the Sword**

Naruto picked the claymore up from the ground.

"You're so slow, Naruto. I wasn't even using the Lightning Chakra enhancements." Teresa's smile was maddening in more than one way. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought that it could weave illusions.

"The Claymore. It's around a hundred kilos. Cut me some-"

_Clang. Clang. Clang-clang-clang-clang_. There was a sudden horrible sound of a sword on bone as Teresa cut him extremely deep.

"D-damn it. I didn't even get through a tenth of my kata."

"Sword forms aren't meant to be used in succession, Naruto. They're there so you know each of the moves related to a specific starting grip. That reverse grip nonsense is only good in conjunction with some other, very, very powerful two-handed forms, or a sword that can cut through anything."

Naruto stared at the _Mifune no Kiba_, which winked back at him in the sunlight.

They had been fighting a walking battle through the path, while the little girl stayed several meters behind them. They didn't dare let her too far out of sight - there were Yoma around, even if Naruto could detect them.

A huge Lightning Dragon burst forward from Teresa's outstretched palm, and electrocuted a Yoma so thoroughly that it was also incinerated.

"Overkill", Naruto remarked. Teresa smiled rather faintly. There was a comfortable silence and a few more walking practices, when Naruto abruptly stopped.

"Do you fear death, Teresa?"

"I'd prefer not to die, but... not really. Something has to happen after this, right? I don't want to experience it for very many years, but when the time comes, I'll go with a smile on my face."

"What if you were killed?" Naruto asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice.

"I don't think that's the question you want to ask, Naruto", she said gently.

Naruto knew the question he wanted to ask. It was more along the lines of _What would I do without you_?

"I can't imagine being lonely again."

Teresa looked from Naruto to the little girl who couldn't speak. "Me neither." She suddenly picked the little girl up, and hugged her slightly.

Naruto looked upwards. "Good, there's a rain cloud."

"How does that affect anything at-"

"Kirin. The Lightning Release: Kirin requires a rain cloud to activate. The premise is that you send a spark through the ground to a stationary target, and then you gather a very, very large amount of Lightning Chakra, and then shoot it into the cloud. The cloud will then release all of its natural lightning as well as your Lightning Chakra, resulting in a very, very large bolt of lightning hitting your target. Sasuke said something about positive and negative charges being important, but all lightning's just lightning to me. I can't tell the difference. That's why I can't do it. Offensive Lightning maneuvers are beyond me, especially middle-S rank offensive Lightning Jutsu."

"But that's really easy!" Teresa protested. "All I have to learn is how to send Lightning into the Cloud. When I use the Surge, I change the charge of the target, and then change the charge of my Chakra, meaning that I instantly zap them when I touch the ground, which becomes a conductor."

"I have no clue what you just said, but it probably works."

Teresa placed her hand on the ground, and then changed the charge of a tree several hundred meters away to negative, then sent a huge positive bolt of electricity into the storm cloud, a bolt so large that Naruto would have been hard pressed to match it with a Three-Tailed transformation.

"Whoo! That's all my Chakra!"

The damage was immense. Huge bolts of lightning rained on them, and Naruto had to jump over the little girl to prevent it from electrocuting her, earning a huge burn as he dispelled the Lightning Chakra with his own.

"Sennin Modo!" Naruto gathered the natural energies left from the artificial storm and entered Sage Mode, grabbing both Teresa and an extremely scared little girl and leaving the area of the storm cloud at speeds that would leave sound in the dust, creating a huge boom.

"I'm moving in the range of around five Claymore!" Naruto shouted over the din of crashing thunder. "They're very, very weak compared to you, though, even now. They're slightly weaker than Rosemary was before her transformation, and much weaker after she Awakened."

He pulled out of Sage Mode, and collapsed to the ground, landing on his back, with Teresa on his chest, and the little girl on hers.

"They're headed this way. I think there's a sensor among them."

The malfunctioning Kirin was several kilometers away now. "I understand now", Teresa said, her Chakra replenishing already. "In order to get it work, I have to make everything else positive, and the target negative. Otherwise..." She pointed.

Naruto laughed weakly. "They're several hundred yards away. _Fireball jutsu_!"

A pile of leaves that the little had gathered lit up. "Thank you", Naruto said, smiling at the little girl. She didn't even look at him.

They waited for a moment before they felt the Claymore surround them.

"We've been expecting you for nearly fifteen minutes!" Teresa suddenly called out, a faint smile on her face, and glee in her eyes. "Might as well come out, number Five."

There was a sharp gasp from Naruto's left as a woman with very long hair stepped out. "The foremost warrior of our Organization, Teresa of the Faint Smile. I have been ordered to assess and retrieve your companion."

"All this for an orphan girl?" Naruto asked, his face in his Bible, and an errant finger pointed at the little girl, who was sleeping like a log.

Number Five exploded. "You idiot!" she screeched.

"I don't understand", he said, with the perfect picture of innocence painted with the ends of Teresa's hair on his face. He moved slightly, and the hair stopped tickling his cheek.

"We're here for you!" she all but shouted, not buying his act.

"Why would you want me of all people? Are you in need of a spiritual guide? Well, then, a reading from Isiah Fifty Eight, Eleven. The Lord will guide you always, he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden-"

"Cut the crap!" Five shouted. Teresa smiled, but looked rather offended.

"Would you please, Elda. I find that very uplifting. It's nice to know that God will-"

"You've _never_ been religious, Teresa! You were always the- the _rebel_, the one who ran away, the one who-"

"Now, now. There's no need to shout, after all, St. John of the Cross teaches that Silence is God's first- Alright, fuck this shit!" Naruto put down the Bible. "Why are you here, and why do you want me? I'm just a tagalong for the main show."

"There are rumors of a two-person team, a man and an ex-Claymore", Elda spat at the name, "who are killing Yoma. The man carries a Claymore sword, and the woman carries a thinner, but longer blade." She looked pointedly at the _Mifune no Kiba_.

"She does all the work. I'm just a distraction."

"That's _not_ true", screeched Elda.

"Yes it is!"

"No it's not!"

"Very mature", complained a voice in the background.

"Oooh, scary! A nameless, faceless entity of power hidden in the shadows! I'm pissing a bucket of cliche out of my pants here", Naruto bit out. "Whatever will I do?" he continued. "Should I hand myself over, Teresa? I feel captured already!"

"That's an eight in terms of performance and a seven in terms of bite", Teresa supplied helpfully.

"Stop mocking me!" Elda shouted.

"I'm not mocking you. I'm mocking the nameless, faceless entity of power hidden in the shadows that's causing me to piss a bucket of cliche out of my pants", Naruto answered, in a deadpan that he had learned from the fifth Kazekage of Suna, a personal friend of his, who'd been haunted by the One-Tailed Raccoon demon for the majority of his life.

"I like this guy. Maybe the Organization's starting a comedy class."

"But his humor's terrible!" protested Teresa.

"Are we going to fight or not?" complained another nameless, faceless Claymore.

"Yes. It's a dead or alive order, I think. If you interfere, it's your head, Teresa."

"Okay", Teresa smiled.

"Really?" Elda stared. "Are you really okay with not interfering?"

"Yes, of course I am. If you want to lop my comedian's head off, go right ahead. I'll be rather angry and moody, and I'll be sending out my Black Card to you, but I guess that's alright with you. I mean, he's been keeping me sane for the past months, helping me in the most difficult time of my life, but if it's nothing to you, go ahead."

Elda and several of members of her team stared in shock. "R-really, Teresa? I'm s-sorry about this. If you ever need a shoulder to cry on, I can help with that."

"You thought she was serious? That was terrible acting!" Naruto complained.

"Yeah, he's not my comedian. He's my lover." Teresa walked up to Naruto and began kissing him passionately. Naruto, who had never really kissed anyone passionately, started kissing back awkwardly. It would have been disgusting if not for the fact that the two of them were extremely attractive.

Everyone, including the little girl, looked a bit more than taken aback.

"That still doesn't solve the mystery as to why he's able to carry a Claymore. They're nearly a hundred kilos!"

"Are you serious? I carried a hundred kilos in logs twenty or thirty times a day when I was seven!" Naruto wasn't exactly lying. He had, on one occasion, done so. It was for a Body Replacement Jutsu resupply, as most ninja from Konoha liked to replace themselves with logs as opposed to other objects.

"Men aren't that weak! Even if we can't swing a sword like all of you, we can still carry things. Okay, so I may have managed to kill three or four Yoma, and I have a good head for Yoma killing strategy. I played a lot of Sho- Chess when I was younger." That was true too. He'd play a game of Shogi every week with his genius friend Shikamaru, but he always lost.

"I don't believe him", said the nameless, faceless voice. "Just attack him. If he dies, then he was somewhat of a joke that Teresa fucked once in a while. If he doesn't, then we take him back."

_Clang_!

"H-hey! Can't we talk about this!" Naruto adopted a wild-eyed look that worked very well when he was twelve.

The next time a slice came, he let it pass over his chest, cutting an inch into a nonvital area. "Gah!" he screamed, and fell to the ground, clutching the wound.

"No. He's faking. I'm a sensor, you know. You anticipated the blow, and let it hit you anyway. The jig is up", she said.

"Okay. I was faking." He jumped to his feet, and initiated the ninth kata of the swirling wave.

There were nearly a hundred clangs between the five swords before he was able to cut off a chunk of Elda's flesh. Naruto, who'd given up on convincing them about his lack of ability, had begun taunting them.

"Teresa's much faster than the four of you. If you were to fight, she'd kill you faster than you could parry."

"He's playing with us", growled Elda. "How could you possibly match us?" she asked. "Are you of the first generation?"

"No, I was never a Claymore. I was something that hasn't ever been seen in this part of the world."

"This part of the world? This _is _the world, you fool. There's nothing else out there!"

"That's... patently untrue. Whose been lying to you your entire life? I come from many thousands of miles away from here. I walked the whole way. Took years, it did."

"But every single ship that's been sent out came back with-"

"Have you met these ships as they docked? Because I sort of came here by ship, over the Black Sea, which I now know why people refer to as the so-called Eastern Ocean. Is all of this continent retarded?"

"But there's no way-"

"That the organization will lie to you? Happens all the time." Teresa smiled.

"N-no matter", said Elda. "I still have to bring you back!"

"Can we fight tomorrow, and on a more flat surface, please? There's a prairie up ahead, before we reach the mountains, and the sun's going to rise in seven hours. I want to get some sleep, and all this excitement's really tiring her out", Naruto said, referring to the little girl.

The Claymore looked among one another.

"O-okay. I guess we can do that."

"Good." Naruto plopped onto the ground, putting his head on Teresa's lap, and began to snore.

"He's drooling", Teresa said, her smile looking forced.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"I'm sorry, ladies. I'm a bit of a comedian by night. It helps Teresa unwind. I promise that you will not find me quite as magnanimous as I was."

This was the serious face of Naruto, one that Teresa only saw when they fought Yoma. She always knew there was a true warrior under his facade, one that was as unafraid of killing other non-evil sentient beings as she was. One that could stomach watching a child get kicked.

She frowned. It seemed so unnecessary to have done so. The girl was so very cute, and was better than any pet.

"I'm giving you three warnings. The first will be that I'm unafraid to hurt you. The second will come when I knock you down."

The Claymore was stuck into the ground behind him. "I will fight you with my bare hands and win."

Teresa knew how misleading the statement was - she knew Naruto was much better with his hands than a sword.

"You're an arrogant pig. An arrogant human pig." Elda glared at him, and swung her sword at him experimentally.

_Thock_.

Naruto had caught her Claymore's blade between his forefinger and thumb. He pushed it out of the way. "Please do not presume that I am joking."

"He's an Awakened One. One of the first generation. He must have been lying. That's impossible otherwise."

Naruto blocked several more experimental swings without moving. "Definitely weaker than Teresa."

_Thock_.

"The swing got much stronger", Naruto remarked, frowning. "What did you do? I didn't see your muscles contracting, so it must be your Yoma skill."

_Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock!_

"Ooh, that's going to leave a bruise", Naruto complained. "I understand now. Each time you hit, you channel more Youki to the edge of your blade, but the way the Claymore is made means that instead of dispersing, it'll retain the Youki as long as more comes intermittently. A truly powerful way to break through anything from stone to Awakened carapaces."

"How do you know so much about our Claymores?" Elda wondered, as she jumped back for a moment.

"Oh, I studied Teresa's for a little while."

_Thock! Thock! Thock!_

"That's enough. This might actually hurt me soon. Dynamic Entry!" Naruto shouted, and ducked under Elda's swing, then hit her with a flying sidekick in full force on the left shoulder, sending her crashing and spinning to the ground, several meters away. "Now, that kick would have knocked off your head if I didn't aim for your shoulder."

The response of the group was to turn their eyes golden.

"Okay, Teresa, what's going on. Huge Youki surge!" Naruto jumped back as a substantially faster Elda buried her sword in a way that would have cross-sectioned him.

"They're using ten percent of their Youki, which turns their eyes gold."

"They're rapidly becoming as fast as you!" Naruto shouted as he dodged four more swords from various Claymore, all of whom had surrounded him. "Chakra no Mesu!" he shouted, making several handseals, and thin green blade-like protrusions shot out of his wrists. "Now, I'm perfectly capable of gutting you with these. So can everyone calm d- oh."

A Claymore had found its way into his shoulder. Naruto retaliated by running his hand over the Claymore's arms, not doing any damage superficially, but ripping apart tendons and ligaments and partially healing them, damaging the arm in a way that was nearly impossible to heal for someone who wasn't a very accomplished medic-nin.

"Wh-what did you do to me?" the Claymore asked as her sword arm flopped to the side uselessly.

"I severed all of your muscle and bone connections, and made it permanent. I told you it was a bad idea to fight me."

The Claymore screamed, and channeled a much larger amount of Youki. Her face became rather grotesque, with bulging veins and slitted eyes. Naruto thought his One-Tailed Fox form looked a bit more appetizing than she did.

"It's not healing!" she screamed.

"Of course it's not. Now if we stopped fighting, I'll fix it for you, okay?"

There was a pause.

"If I don't fix it, she's never using that arm again. This is a unique attack that no amount of experimentation can solve. She will never be a member of your Organization again."

The pause was longer this time, and Naruto got annoyed. Teresa smiled benignly, with more than a hint of malice in her eyes.

"Look, if I have to knock you all out so I can heal her, I will. I hate that attack. It's just supposed to get your attention!"

Elda bared her teeth, and shot at him with a huge buildup of Youki on her blade.

"I've had it", Naruto roared, and then instantly calmed in a way that even Teresa couldn't emulate. He blinked once, and his eyes turned yellow, and a ring of orange surrounded his eyes. He ducked Elda easily, and released a huge amount of Sage Chakra.

"This is the power of Balance! Submit!" he spoke, roaring and whispering in two different voices, both of which were somewhat similar to his.

Instantly, everyone else but Teresa sank to their knees, and the little girl passed out. Teresa raised her eyebrows and smiled faintly, her own immense Chakra pushing against the power of the Earth.

"Wh-what are you?" Elda asked, trying her best to stand, and finally succeeding. "What is that Youki?"

"It's not Youki, just the strength of nature." Naruto walked over to the Claymore whose arm he had damaged, and a blue blade of Chakra, identical to the green one shot out of his wrist. He ran his hand the exact same way he did before, and the Claymore screamed, then healed her own arm. "That's the not-so-permanent version of the same attack, which allows you to heal yourself. Now, all of you, please leave."

He blinked, and his eyes were cornflower blue again. The orange pigmentation was nowhere to be seen. "I think it's been established that I can kill you pretty easily if you don't Awaken, and that should never, ever happen."

"We still have to bring you back."

"Wrong answer! Three Prongs of the Eight Diagrams! Seal!" Naruto brought his fists together, by the wrist and then punched each of them in the stomach, except for the one who was still healing her arm. "You'll gain access to your Youki in two days or so when the Seal breaks down. I haven't Sealed her, because I don't want Yoma to kill all of you. But you best stay here for two days, or go home to wherever that is. I know all of you are much stronger than any Yoma you should run into."

"We're going", Teresa declared, picking up the little girl. The trio headed towards the mountain.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"Do you want to be able to use your Youki again?"

"Not really."

"I was wondering if there would be any withdrawal symptoms to it."

"Oh, there are, but I'm keeping them away. Ecstasy isn't something you can forget easily."

"Do you want me to remove one of the two seals? If I get rid of the Five Element Gogyo Fuin, it'll let you draw Youki, and it'll never-"

"I told you I don't need it." Teresa's smile had become rather dangerous.

Naruto nodded as they began to ascend the mountain.

"Now that you have some familiarity with the four types of offensive Lightning Jutsu, I'm going to tell you about the last. This information was only given to three people. Once again, no one was capable of it at all. It is the Black Lightning. The way Darui described it was to find the other side of Lightning", Naruto paused.

"There are two sides to Truth, knowledge and justice. If one can find knowledge in the strength of white Lightning, you may find justice in the void. When you discover the cracks in the Truth of Thunder, you will discover Lightning's darker brother", Naruto paused again.

"That's one of the three great riddles of Elemental Understanding. The other two stem from the Founding Hokage's poem about Falling Leaves and the Second Tsuchikage's poem about Swirling Dust."

There was a longer pause.

"I understand none of them", he admitted. "I am neither a scholar, nor a visionary. When I was younger, I believed that I would be the Fifth or at least Sixth Hokage. It was an unrealistic dream. I am not meant to lead in that manner. I care too much for my people to send them to death, and I am a ninja, through and through. I don't have the internal strength to summon the Lightning Release Armor as you do, nor the coldness necessary to discern the Black Lightning. I don't have the respect for all life necessary to summon the Wood Release, nor the Resolve necessary to view the world through the lens of ashes and dust. My Revelation is the Balance of the Sage."

He stopped again.

"You have learned the Lightning Release Armor without Enlightenment. I expect you'll have the ability to learn the Black Lightning without it. When the time comes for your Enlightenment, I have no doubt that you will be greater than I am, by far. At that point, all I would have left for you is good company, and a bunch of obscure seals."

He felt a pair of arms around his waist. "I promise I won't throw you out", she whispered, knowing exactly what he feared.

"Y-you don't understand. No one whose ever received their Enlightenment, no one whose ever learned their Deva, has ever-"

The unspoken word hung heavy in the air.

"N-not like I have. They were people who stood at the pinnacle of power, of knowledge, on the threshold of Revelation. They ceased to be... human."

Teresa frowned.

"A Claymore and a Jinchuuriki are very similar. They are both sacrifices, or so they are told. Having a demon sealed or implanted is a sure way to guarantee that you will never understand the Deva... that you will never cease to be human, you will never forget the sacrifice."

Naruto stopped walking and stared at the noonday sun.

"The true power of the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style..."

Naruto's eyes turned yellow, and Teresa noticed a black bar had replaced his pupils.

"... is the ability for you to know all the Paths you can take in life simultaneously. You may simultaneously experience the vision and willpower of the Deva with the strength of a Demon."

His eyes turned back to those of a more human Naruto.

"The Five Element Seal is one of the four seals of Ascension. It blocks off your contact with internal forces so that you may rely on something else."

They continued walking.

"There is a final piece to the Deva. When you reach the pinnacle of your power, I will teach you it, not because I want you to learn it, but because you have the right to know it..."

At that moment, the little girl slipped on a falling rock, and Teresa executed a rescue maneuver.

Not many words were said afterwards.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"What's that statue?" Naruto pointed to a marble piece that showed a pair of identical women with their backs to one another, with a leg raised each, and a hand clasping an angelic wing.

Teresa chuckled. "My namesake, actually. The one on the right is Teresa, the one on the left is Clare."

Naruto stared at it for a moment.

"I'm tired of calling you little girl. Your name is Clare now, okay?" Teresa was talking to her 'pet' again.

Naruto wondered if he was, too, a pet.

Clare nodded emphatically.

"That's not your real name, is it?" Teresa looked on, mildly surprised.

Clare nodded emphatically again.

"Clare was the Goddess of Love that's pure..." Teresa trailed off, not wanting to tell her that Teresa was the Goddess of Love that wasn't.

"I suppose that it's proof that our parents did love us", Teresa said, smiling softly.

Naruto was barely able to keep down a bubble of envy that blossomed from his stomach. Clare began to cry slightly. Naruto wiped it away with the hem of his top.

"Come on, Clare."

**The Seal and the Sword**

As they entered the village, they noticed that no one was in the street. It was understandable, as it had begun drizzling lightly.

"There's an awakened being here, Teresa", Naruto mumbled. "A very powerful one. It's hiding most of its Youki by folding the power on itself. I'm going to assume he or she hasn't developed a method to use concentrated Youki, due to the fact that neither Shape nor Nature transformations are formally known in this part of the world, but if we let the Youki unfold, there's not going to be a village here anymore, because the ensuing battle will do a large amount of damage."

They looked for all the world like a family coming to visit a town. A father, a mother, and a little girl.

"Seal?" Teresa queried, referring to Naruto's use of Sealing as his ultimate analogy for everything.

"Lightning Shunshin, yes. We'll bisect it several ways."

Unfortunately, the Awakened Being seemed to be rather well informed, somehow, and immediately began releasing it's Youki.

"Go, Teresa. I'll take care of Clare for now!" Naruto shouted as Teresa sped off.

Naruto herded the girl into a building, and whispered to her softly, trying to calm her down - she always got so worried when Teresa went off.

"You love her, don't you?" he asked Clare. She didn't respond.

"I love her too", Naruto trailed off, rather helplessly. Clare didn't even look at him.

"When she hit you... I felt my heart breaking. I didn't know how I could love her any longer."

"You know, don't you? Too love someone so much you could barely draw breath when you look upon them?"

"I loved several people like that."

"I had to kill some of them, and I had to watch the others die. I watched some of them kill each other."

"Could you kill Teresa if she did unspeakable things?"

Clare didn't seem to here him.

"Neither can I."

There was the sound of thunder, and Naruto wondered whether it had been natural, or if Teresa had produced it.

"I once hated the rain. I strove to be as bright as sunlight, and as ever-burning as foxfire."

"They used to say that it rained because Susano'o had seen too many sorrows, and had to cry. All the heartache and pain in his soul exits, and the dark clouds become light clouds."

"Everyone is equal in the rain. It extinguishes all fire, washes away dirt, tears and blood. It takes exceptional resolve to continue when it rains."

"Rain... rain brings you to the threshold of enlightenment. Rain washes away everything that clouds your sight."

"The balance must be maintained, between those days in which it rains, and the days in which it shines. I lived the first half of my life in the sunshine..."

Clare looked into his eyes.

"And now, I must bear all of the crushing drops of water, the searing strikes of lightning, and the booming of thunder."

"Come, she will either be having trouble, or have finished her target off."

**The Seal and the Sword**

The true power of Teresa, Naruto decided, was her ability to discover exactly how to kill something. It was a trait that was shared by the teammate of his teacher Jiraiya, the Snake Sannin Orochimaru - he knew exactly what kind of poison, which Jutsu, and who could be used to the greatest effect against his opponents.

Naruto called it battle sense. While Teresa only had superior swordsmanship and precognition going on for her before, he was sure he couldn't have won against her even then, without an attack that could destroy mountains (his Rasenshuuriken).

She wasn't efficient with her sword - she had no need to be. She would kill an opponent with a thousand cuts, a hundred, ten or even one. She left behind a mess more often than not, that Naruto had to discreetly burn in order not to traumatize people _too_ much.

She was cruel in a way only a seasoned warrior could be. He believed that if she had been born in Konoha, she would have had a great career in Torture and Interrogations.

In some ways, he hated it. It reminded him of many people in his life that he had killed or hated.

But he came to a startling revelation, days after meeting her. He missed it.

Only one other person had been that cruel.

"Black Lightning!" she screeched, her voice hoarse. A gout of bluish-white enveloped her. She huffed and dispelled it.

"Black Lightning!"

"Black Lightning!"

"It's not working, Naruto."

"Think on Darui's mantra. Think on Darui's mantra."

"Tell me about Darui."

"He was... more of a mentor than Kakashi-sensei in many ways. He was the strongest of all Jonin in Kumo, stronger even than their Two-Tailed Jinchuuriki, Nii Yugito, who held the ability of life and death in her touch, and could fire bright burning blue flames without much conscious thought. He was a bit of a laid-back genius, but that's not to say he was lazy. He worked at things with a single-minded determination that I haven't seen many people match."

"He trusted less people with the Black Lightning than the Raikage did with the Lightning Release Armor. He thought it was easier to learn, and considering that it had latent piercing power and higher voltage, as well as an ability to triumph over most other elements, rivalling the Black Flames of the Rising Sun, it was possibly for the best. When my grandmother, and my godfather were killed, he managed to avenge his best friend, his Raikage, and the Eight-Tails Jinchuuriki, by striking the final blow on our mortal enemy."

"He succumbed to his wounds before the medics could save him, since he used most of his remaining Chakra to save me. He was powerful - he held the Black Lightning for nearly seven minutes, which is two minutes longer than the Raikage could hold the Lightning Release Armor. The remarkable thing is that his mother was a Kiri shinobi, who taught him that all things must borne for the survival of his family. He took her lessons, and put it into a different use. He thought that the survival of the world was more important than anything, and he believed that someone had to mete out the punishment necessary for the survival of the world."

"He was a retributivist in terms of justice. He thought that if you didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't be punished, but if you did, it was an eye for an eye. He made his enemies suffer. The Black Lightning is not a tame power - it is cruel, and very painful. I was hit by a spark of Black Lightning once, and the throbbing pain didn't leave me for days. It came nowhere close to killing me, but yet, it was more pain than anything. It felt as if I were being pulled apart at the point of contact. He called the Black Lightning a son of the Void."

Naruto then threw a Chakra-reinforced blond hair at a bird, transfixing it. "Dinner, girls."

**The Seal and the Sword**

"He humiliated us. It was as if we were fighting with Teresa herself, only worse. He didn't even use his Claymore. He showed no sign of being an Awakened Being - his blood was very red, and stained brown. There was something strange about him. He had another power, one that we had never seen before."

"No, more than one power that we've never seen. They call him and Teresa the Seal and the Sword for a good reason. He's able to... subdue our Yoma. I... I hadn't felt so free since before I took the Yoma within me..."

"He could make these blue and green energy blades. The green one was stronger, and permanent. The blue one hurt more. It didn't do anything, to our skin or even cut us on the surface, but he could render my arm useless without cutting it off. I have no doubt he could cut my blood vessels or even bone with the same technique."

"When he got angry at us, he suddenly became very... calm, and he released a huge amount of energy. He said it was the power of balance, and his voice split in two. It was like two people talking at once. They were noticeably different, and seemed to be of the same power. A single surge of this power knocked everyone to their knees, except for Teresa, who he was either not targeting, has resistance and experience with it, or is just so much stronger than us that she can just smile." Elda was quite bitter about the man.

"His most dangerous power was his ability to force our Yoma down. He shouted 'three prong seal' and his hands lit up, and he hit all of us except for number Seven, who was healing her arm at the time. The Yoma was instantly gone. I'm sure that wasn't his strongest seal, and I'm more certain that he used one on Teresa. That would explain why her eyes haven't changed for months."

A man on one of the thrones growled. "That makes no sense! By all reports, Teresa was capable of moving at the same speed as she always has. Her swings haven't gotten any weaker - she's still able to cut through things as easily as if she were using a Claymore. Instead, she's using a sword that is comparably flimsy!"

"We will figure this enigma out later. We must decide on a course of action when it comes to her companion."

"I have no doubt that we have only scratched the surface of his talents. You say that he displays sexual attraction toward our warriors despite their conditions?"

"Yes. He and Teresa..." Elda blushed. "They were... kissing and fondling one another in front of us."

"Is that so? Perhaps we can entice him with... We have the least control over the actions of Teresa herself, and it would be foolish to tell her to bring him in. She'd be a flight risk. Number Five, you have been demoted to number Six. Dismissed. See your Handler for your next mission."

"But there was no way I could have-"

"You are dismissed."

Elda and the rest of the Claymore left the room, some of them grumbling, the others contrite.

"If we push Teresa and she defects... or worse..."

"She wouldn't. She is the furthest from Awakening."

"Thank you for your opinion, Orsay. I doubt she will Awaken. But even as a defector, she has quite a bit of power."

"Why must we worry about this to begin with?", said a man in a hat and sunglasses. "It isn't as if the vaunted Seal and Sword aren't completing all our assignments. We'll send them on a bunch of suicide missions, and wait for them to slip up. Then, we'll release our new number Two on her, and she will be killed, as well as he. There is no one", a shadow fell across his features, "No one capable of defeating Priscilla at this moment, except for Teresa herself. When she matures, there will be no one capable of defeating her at all."

"Wise words indeed, Rubel", said one of the men on a Throne. "I say we proceed with the Soul Link project..."

**The Seal and the Sword**

"I love you."

"C-clare?"

"I love you."

"Oh, I knew she could speak!" crowed Naruto.

Teresa had just given her a yam several moments previously.

"I love you." Clare didn't say much besides that, but it was a start.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"Still having trouble with the Black Lightning?" Naruto asked, not unsympathetically.

"It's been five months. I thought it'd be just as easy as the Lightning Release Armor..." Teresa smiled, but it was clearly forced.

"You can't be good at everything, Teresa", Naruto frowned.

"But I am. I've always been the best at everything."

"Yeah, Teresa's the best at everything", Clare said softly.

"I don't think you understand. The Raikage was forty three years old when he mastered the Lightning Release Armor. He had been a Shinobi for the better part of thirty years, and had been training for the job since he was six, just like I was. He was sixty eight when he died, and still incapable of using it without Handseals or the Words. In the past year, you've surpassed all expectations. I'm beginning to think that the people on my continent aren't that special anymore..."

_Ting_.

"Show yourself. I've know you've been approaching from the south for thirteen miles or so. You moved at very specific speeds, and you just threw a senbon needle, with the intent to paralyze me", Naruto said, in Japanese.

"Indeed, you are as powerful and as difficult to surprise as we were warned."

Three shinobi with masks stepped from behind trees. "We come from Konoha to capture you."

"What are they saying?" Teresa asked.

"They're what you would call a Hunter-nin squad. They specialize in travelling very long distances in order to capture their prey. Remember when I told you I was on the run?" Naruto switched to Japanese very abruptly. "I don't recall being important enough to be hunted down."

"Things have changed, Uzumaki Naruto. Hokage-sama is preparing for war. He wants you back to fight."

"He wants me back to fight", Naruto told Teresa. She laughed uproariously, and pointed at Naruto, then at herself, in a clear gesture. _Mine_.

"Drop off the foreign woman, or bring her with you, Uzumaki-san. We have to bring you back anyhow."

"Do you seriously believe you have the skill to bring me back?"

"Of course. There are three of us. We are the best of the Konoha Hunter-nin."

"He says that he has the skill to bring me in because there are three of them, and that they're the best of the Konoha hunter-nin squad", Naruto said to Teresa. Even Clare smiled at that, but probably because she thought Teresa was going to make a mess of them. "Tell me, what is my rank in the Bingo books?"

"That's not important. Hokage-sama said that we were the best, and that we the most capable."

"You're the best, and the most capable? Is Sharingan no Kakashi dead, has his borrowed Mangekyo stopped spinning? Is Haruno Sakura in a grave, her pink hair and perfect Chakra control pooled around her? Is Dickless Sai gone, drowned in his ink? Has the traitor Kabuto you've welcomed back stopped experimenting and lost his edge? Is Maito Gai crippled?"

"You're just naming the elite of-"

"Of course I'm naming the elite of Konoha! Because I am..." Naruto's Sage Chakra surged forward, and instantly, the Hunter-nin squad dashed away from him, "better than them. Even if _they_ came, I would still be able to kill them."

"I don't understand what's going on", said Teresa.

"I'm taking out the trash", Naruto said, spinning his claymore around in his hand. He darted forward.

The hunter-nin didn't stand a chance - the claymore looked deceptively light in the morning light, despite its size, but when the hunter-nin tried to parry with a kunai, it was rent asunder, and the claymore buried itself in his shoulder. The woman screamed and replaced herself with a log.

"Now. Take off your masks, or I will kill you like dogs. I prefer to see the face of my enemies. Do not believe that I am incapable of killing you very easily."

The three hunter-nin looked among one another, and slowly removed their masks.

"What's this? Are you _twelve_?"

The hunter-nin team glared. "Thirteen!" the only boy shouted at him.

"Fair enough. When I was thirteen, I subdued the Ichibi no Tanuki. Let me assume the same amount of power, and see how the 'best hunter-nin team' in Konoha matches up."

Naruto flared a comparatively tiny portion of his Sage Chakra, making a Ram seal.

"Dance of the Thirty Falling Leaves!" the boy cried out, and threw himself into a very fancy spinning cake.

"Tch", Naruto spat. "I invented that one, with Maito Gai, after Rock Lee died. You're suppose to do it like... this!"

A localized gale picked up at the force of Naruto's kick, and soon, leaves were being sucked in by the whirlwind of sorts that he created.

_Crack_.

"M-my shoulder!" the boy grimaced, struggling.

"What's the matter. No one gets hurt anymore? Not even a twelve year old drama queen like Yamanaka Ino would have complained if her shoulder got smashed a bit. What are they teaching all of you, nowadays?" It was the truth too. Fifteen years ago, if someone received a wound, they didn't scream or shout. They fought on, even if the opponent was far superior.

"The Will of Fire is to put the lives of your comrades before your own by far!" Naruto roared, sounding for all the world like a lion. "The Will of Fire is not to make a complaint when a shard of glass flies into your back and paralyzes you forever, but to fend off your far superior opponent while lying on the ground, unable to move your legs, _dying_. If you want to find good ninja, look no further than ten years at the Akatsuki, ten S-class missing-nin who betrayed their countries for power."

He took on a more feral grin, and the teacher, warrior, and deadly enemy showed itself. Teresa decided that she liked him best this way, despite the fact that it would have driven her crazy if he were such all the time. If only she could understand what he was saying.

"Then, you will take a look at the strongest Shinobi that the countries have ever produced. How was Terumi Mei able to serve Zetsu the plant as a side dish during the second Kage summit, broiled slightly in lava and steam. How A was able to shatter the Sameheda of Hoshigaki Kisame with a single punch. How Darui of Kumo and I engaged Uchiha Madara in the Valley of the End."

"Girlie, when you've been hit by Genjutsu from Susano'o himself, the rest of the stuff seems sort of second rate", Naruto suddenly said as a quick wave of his hand buried one of the girls in a shower of mud.

"I'm demanding that I receive everything you've said in this battle on transcript. We can act in out in front of Clare, and I can be you. You'll be the three hunter-nin." Clare giggled, of course. So did Naruto, actually.

"You must understand exactly what you fight for before you have the ability to fight well. One day, you'll be able to ignore wounds with your resolve alone. I'm deciding whether or not you'll see that day. Your Taijutsu and your Genjutsu are pathetic. Neither hand-to-hand combat nor fighting nor the illusion arts should be used in such a way. There's only the Ninjutsu specialist left. Go ahead. Hit me with your best shot, and I might forgive your team."

"Very well! I'll show you what a student of Hatake Kakashi can do!" she shouted, making three very familiar handseals. Her hand lit up in a glowing blue light that seemed to suck all the photons toward it.

"Chidori!" she cried, as she rushed forward, intent on impaling her sempai.

She sank her hand into his left lung triumphantly. There was no way he was getting up from this attack, right?

_Poof_.

"A s-shadow clone", she whispered resignedly. Kakashi had warned her that Uzumaki surpassed him when he turned sixteen, and discovered a secret so powerful that it rivalled what was sealed in his stomach at that point. She had forgotten, believing that he wasn't dangerous, due to the fact that he didn't have a demon in his stomach any more, and all the stories about Jinchuuriki were about the fear associated with them.

He could have slaughtered them without blinking. He still could.

Instead, he was walking towards her fallen teamates with a very familiar looking three-pronged kunai. She didn't know where she'd seen it before. _Hiraishin_. The kunai of the Fourth Hokage. Uzumaki Naruto's father.

"R-run!" she called out, using the last of her Chakra to Shunshin in front of the Uzumaki. She threw herself at him. "Run! You're n-no match for him! No match at all! We were gravely mistaken! L-leave. What won't you... leave..."

Naruto smiled down at the girl before backhanding her into a tree. The boy who had his shoulder smashed screamed, and ran over to her, and the Genjutsu girl hesitantly knelt in front of him.

"I'm s-sorry. In behalf of my teammates. Please... kill me. I have failed my mission. I have failed my teammates. But, I beg you, let them go. Please don't-"

Teresa watched, mildly confused, as Naruto suddenly threw the Claymore at his waist, and it landed with a _thunk_ next to the Ninjutsu girl's head.

"Those... those that break the rules and regulations are scum. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum." Naruto paused. "Those are the words of Uchiha Obito."

He laughed, long and loudly. Then he stopped, very suddenly, and narrowed his eyes. "Go! I will not be quite as lenient if you face me on a battlefield the next time. Being a shinobi, least of all a Hunter-nin... is not a life for those who believe they're big shit. It's about working together to bring down an enemy far more powerful than yourself. I have no doubt that Kakashi-sensei will be disappointed in you. You all acted alone, without a plan, hoping that I'd acquiesce when you showcased your pathetic skills. Yet... you have shown what it means to live under the direction of the Will of Fire. Now leave, before I change my mind!"

Teresa smiled at the silhouette of Naruto against the setting sun. "Now do tell me, exactly what did you say to them?" she wondered, as the Hunter-nin ran away, with masks in their hands and tails between their legs.

**The Seal and the Sword**

That was a difficult chapter to write, especially the stuff about Darui, which is a character I like alot. I sort of mythologized him, I know - he's not _that_ great, but as an author...

Please, tell me what you think about the Hunter-nin confrontation. That was something I had in mind since the very beginning.


	5. The Threshold of Revelation

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Claymore. I do love Naruto, and I definitely love Teresa, though.

too lazy to log in: Anon reviews get replied to here :P Erm, there are certain scars to his psyche that go away, depending on how he acts... he's certifiably insane at various times, when various traumas are presented to him. So the way he acts with Teresa may not be healthy in the long run, but it makes him feel good.

marc: My fight scenes will get substantially better as there are things to fight about :P Naruto pwning a bunch of overconfident hunter-nin isn't that much fun to write... :X Right then, err, neither is Teresa pwning a bunch of overconfident Awakened beings, for that matter. However... I'm generally known for having better-than-my-other-bits-of-story fights... so I hope I'll live up to your expectations at some point.

unimportant: Teresa's speech was choppy in the beginning because they were both speaking in Turkish, which they both have an elementary grasp of. It changed because they began speaking in German.

tjg: It's not a dark age per say, because they still have the majority of their jutsu left, but the actual ability of their people has declined so that something like water-walking would be considered difficult. The Hunter-nin teams have been tracking him since he left, and considering the fact that he was very, very memorable (stolen Hokage robes, sword at waist, whisker marks) and he killed a _ton_ of bandits, it's plausible that they'd find him after he settles in a general area for a while. Naruto dislikes the claymore swords very, very much (due to what they are in this fic, heh.)

Check our my C2 at www. fanfiction. net/ community/ Breaking_ the_ Boundaries_ between_ Worlds_ Good_ Crossovers/ 93077/

**The Seal and the Sword**

"Clare, I'm going to have to train you. It'll upset Teresa greatly if I handed myself over just because you were captured by Konoha hunter-nin."

Clare nodded slowly, and Naruto turned away in disappointment. He was hoping that she wouldn't agree, especially so readily.

"Teresa, I know that _we_ were trained at an early age, but is it necessary to put Clare through this? We represent the most powerful of our respective fields. She shouldn't have to do this."

Clare, who had heard him, shook her head emphatically, while trying to balance a leaf on her fingertips, with no success.

"Don't be silly, Naruto. We're not invincible."

Naruto could only nod glumly. He had relied on the power of the Kyuubi for so long to heal all of his wounds that, now that he didn't receive them, he had never known what it was like to truly come close to dying.

Clare would be just as susceptible to death as a normal Shinobi. Just as susceptible as Teresa.

Naruto paused, feeling rather terrible for being selfish at the moment.

"What if Clare died because you thought we could hold off our assailants?"

He swallowed. This was what he hated about Teresa. Her ability to influence his emotions so completely, and forget all of his reasoning.

"Of course", he nodded, but there was mutiny in his heart. Yet, he knew that he would never act on it.

"Close your eyes, Naruto."

He did, and she kissed him softly.

All was well.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"Uzumaki Naruto. By the order of the Rokudaime Hokage, you are to return to Konoha."

"Another Hunter-nin squad?" Teresa asked. "It's been two years since the last one showed up."

Clare flipped the Yondaime's last remaining Hiraishin kunai rather threateningly, and suddenly threw it.

It zipped through the air, and the target ducked, but hadn't realized that the ten year old could have possibly woven a Genjutsu on it. So when he moved back into position, it sunk into the man's shoulder.

The man pulled it out, and threw it back at Naruto, but the throw was clearly to return the kunai, and not to attempt the one-in-a-million odds of impaling him.

Naruto caught the kunai easily.

"Amazing. You're a natural teacher. I would have never been able to throw a kunai that well, or weave such a flawless genjutsu at that age."

"She had, and has, more potential than you... Sai."

"I guess I'm caught, Dickless. I had forgotten about one of your three Great powers."

"Oh, they're hardly mine. It's the legacy of Sarutobi Sasuke, who I suppose is my yon-jisan. Only one of them is truly mine."

"Very well, Naru-kun." Sai took a deep breath, and assumed an expressionless mask, then recited. "Sage of Seals, Uzumaki Naruto. Konoha demands your presence for the death of three Konoha Hunter-nin. If you resist, you are to be killed."

Naruto turned into a rather busty twin of himself, and shook his (her?) finger at him. "Sai, we both know that you haven't the skill to bring me back if I refuse. It would take no less than an army to do so, and if you're expending an army for an uncooperative Naruko-chan, you've lost whatever war you were in already."

Sai's lips quirked upwards. He had forgotten about Naruto's infamous Sexy-no-jutsu. "You used to be so loyal. You wanted to be Hokage."

Naruto became male once again, his face downcast. "Remember the words of Danzo." Sai stiffened at the mention of his old master. "Some of us are leaves that bask in the sunlight, but other of us are roots that grow in the darkness. To be a Sage, you must understand all parts of the Tree, so to speak. And I've long learned that the great tree of Konoha, grown on whim by the most powerful Shinobi to ever live... is diseased and rotten to the core."

Sai frowned, "The most powerful Shinobi to-"

"The Shodai Hokage was unequivocally the strongest of all ninja. So powerful that he was able to literally pour his Yin Chakra into the concept known as the Will of Fire. There is an imprint of him on you, on me. On every root, on every leaf. And now, even Clare here. The man who could hold his hands out and tell the Nine Gatekeepers to sit. The man who could make a forest in less than a minute, and then turn them into cheap, affordable housing in the next. He easily defeated Uchiha Madara in his prime, when we could only beat him damaged."

"Yin Chakra? What does the Will of Fire have to do with Yin Chakra?"

"You may discover the answer when you die, Sai, or perhaps, if you live to peer past the threshold of Revelations."

"Enough with the philosophy. You have to come back, or..."

"Or what? What can you hold over me, Sai?"

The dark-haired man paused for a moment, and then took out a huge scroll, as well as a paintbrush. "I will kill her." He pointed at Teresa.

Naruto looked between Teresa and Sai, his eyes crinkling.

"Bahahahahahahah!" he croaked, not unlike a toad, his voice hoarse. "Of all the people in the clearing capable of killing me, I would say that _Bishou no Teresa _would have the easiest time."

"Bishou no Teresa?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Teresa of the Faint Smile", Naruto explained quickly, before switching to Japanese again. "There are orders of magnitude when it comes to Shinobi, or warriors in general. Let's begin with the rank of an Academy student. We'll then move to that of a Genin, capable of killing most civilians. There are the Chunin, who dwarf the strength of most untrained. The Special Jonin, who has specialized, and the Jonin, who has gained all around competence. Then, there are the ninja of ANBU, capable of performing tasks that are beyond that of Jonin. Those that follow are Elite Jonin, unmasked ANBU who have the skills to pull off the craziest quirks."

"You would be an Elite Jonin in terms of power, Sai. I can feel that your learning curve hasn't been very high, nor have your Chakra reserves grown much. Beyond you, is the very, very large jump to the level of the three Sannin, and the lesser Kage, somewhere known as S-rank in the bingo books. To be S-ranked, you must have a very, very powerful skill that nearly nobody can emulate. Your messing about with ink may be deadly to the inexperienced, but that's all it is - messing about. Take my Godfather for a moment. He was capable of summoning, the incomplete version of Sage Mode, as well as being the foremost expert in Sealing during his time."

"And then, there are those that have eclipsed the power of an ordinary Shinobi so thoroughly they become the Gods of Shinobi. Uchiha Madara did it with the use of a Transcendental edition of the Sharingan eye - the Eternal Mangekyo. The Rikudo Sennin and Pain did it with the Rinnegan. The rest of us, however, had to discover our enlightenment."

"And I say us, because there are two of us capable or already within the power of Enlightenment in this clearing, Sai. And it's not you, or your Hunter-nin team."

Naruto had suddenly picked up Clare. "Please try not to make their end too painful. I used to like the guy I was talking to. He was good for a laugh. Don't play with them."

As Naruto disappeared in a Shunshin, Sai stared at the woman Naruto had called _Bishou no Teresa_. He was confused. She didn't seem that intimi-

A sword appeared in her hand, far quicker than his eyes could follow. He would have thought it were illusionary if not for the fact that a single spark danced on the edge of the blade.

"That's the Mifune no Kiba! Retreat!" Sai screamed, but it was too late. To his horror, a _very_ familiar cloud of blue light had settled around her very suddenly. A huge bolt of lightning danced within the static.

Sai blinked, and it was all over for his teammates. Their heads were grotesquely split into pieces, and there was a long, thin cut on his face. He traced the bloody crescent from his forehead over his cheek, and finally to his lip, and he then realized that it would take a very, very long time for him to die.

He bit the underside of his tongue, hoping to release a fast-acting neurotoxin, but he remembered that it had been Naruto who had convinced him to get rid of it, so many years ago. _You're not expendable_, he had said.

A series of cuts appeared on his arms and one severed his left hamstring. He collapsed to the ground, feeling for all the world like a wounded animal, now bleeding profusely.

Several more artful cuts rid him of all of his clothing, leaving him naked, with strips of the dark, heavy clothe of his hunter-nin uniform hanging off of him.

A few more cuts appeared on his chest, underarms, and his stomach. Sai struggled not to cry out as the fifty or so shallow wounds bled sluggishly.

Then suddenly, the monster with the face of a beautiful woman was in front of him, her Lightning Release Armor gone.

"End it", he said. He clasped his hands together as if in prayer. "Please end it." His eyes were shut tight.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing that drew his attention was the _so_ very cruel smile.

Several more shallow cuts appeared on him. They were masterfully done - none of them overlapped, or bled more than a little, but each of them hurt more than he could stand. After two minutes, he cracked, and picked up a rock, intent on putting himself out of his misery.

The rock turned into fine sand in his hand. He thought he saw the woman's hand move - and he was certain it did, but it seemed as if she hadn't even been looking at him. Naruto, as usual, had been right. She was on a level far beyond him.

Sai gave one last wide smile, thinking about him time with friends. He hadn't known friends until he was nearly sixteen, but the following decade was the better portion of the time he spent on earth. "Kakashi-sensei... Sakura... N-naruto..." he whispered one last time, before his tongue was split in two by the Thunder Fang, and he began bleeding in earnest.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"I thought I asked you not to play with them", Naruto said quietly.

They were nearly thirty miles away from his encounter with Sai.

"But it was so much fun", Teresa smiled. There was no trace of regret in her eyes.

"Who did you torture?" Naruto asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"The one you were talking to, of course. I was going to make it quick, but he picked up a rock in an attempt to kill me, so I made it slow."

There was more than a small amount of muted horror on Naruto's face. "I _liked_ Sai. He was a good friend for nearly five years."

"Oh, really? Well, you should have said something, dear", Teresa said, her still-bloody hands grasping him by the cheeks and her long, rough tongue slipping into his mouth.

"Mmph", Naruto muttered, trying to dislodge her at first. "Mmm", he moaned, as he relaxed. Clare giggled, and Naruto felt disturbed that the little girl would find anything funny when Teresa was covered in blood. _Human_ blood.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't do that again", Naruto finally said, looking away.

"You don't like it when I kiss you anymore?"

"No", Naruto shouted, "I do. You know that's not what I..." He quickly lowered the volume, mindful of the fact that Clare was looking between them, wide-eyed. "You know that's not what I mean, Teresa. Can't you have your fun with people who deserve it?"

Teresa's eyes became hard. "He threatened me. He was here for an _unforgivable_ reason." Her smile became forced. "They wanted to take _you_ away from me", she hissed.

Naruto didn't know what to say to that.

"I'm _never_ letting you go."

Naruto nodded. All of the rebukes that had built seemed to have vanished. "Teresa, I'm sor-"

"Apologies don't change my disappointment in you."

A lone tear dripped out of the corner of his eye. A stray beam of sunlight hit it, and it glowed, for a moment.

"Hey, hey. Don't be upset." Teresa shook her head, and wiped the tear away, staining Naruto's cheek with drying blood.

Naruto swallowed, but he didn't say anything.

They walked in silence for several moments. She turned to him. "I love you."

Naruto held back a choked gasp.

All was well.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"It's been two years, and I'm no closer to managing the Black Lightning", Teresa shook her head.

Naruto looked prepared to talk about Darui again, but Teresa continued.

"I've understood exactly what I needed to do for a while now. I must charge the Yin Chakra with the Truth of Thunder, as I've done with the Lightning Release Armor. Only the Yang Chakra must be elementally changed, creating the effect of the void, since the Lightning'll collapse on itself and negate everything it touches. But that's impossible. It's like... looking left and right at the same time."

Naruto laughed.

"It's not funny", Teresa protested weakly.

Naruto stuck his tongue out. "Did I tell you the story of how my Rasenshuuriken was created?"

Teresa nodded.

"Well, I said the exact same thing to Kakashi-sensei. I told him that it was like looking left and right at the same time. So he told me that I, _could_, in fact, look left and right at the same time. With my shadow clones."

"_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_", Teresa whispered, her hand in a perfect ram seal. She barely ever said the words, but she wanted a perfect clone. The other Teresa smiled at her, and began to generate Lightning Release Yang Chakra.

"The mantra?" Naruto asked.

"The mantra", Teresa nodded.

"Sit upon the throne of clouds and blue skies to take a peek into the heavens for yourself. The lightning lances as thunder resounds in our hearts and minds. The Truth of Thunder, equal parts Knowledge and Justice lights up the darkened path with every flash, every crash. In the name of the progenitor, I sing to my spirit, I sing for my spirit to become one with Thunder..."

Teresa's eyes had become glowing green orbs, and her hair danced.

"Sit upon the throne of clouds..."

"Sit upon the throne of clouds..."

The amount of Yin Chakra generated could shame a weaker Bijuu. Teresa's clone was making much less Yang Chakra, however.

Quite suddenly, in the middle of her eighth recitation of her self-created mantra, Teresa's hands glowed, and she clasped them over those of her clone, which dispelled, and the clone popped, disappearing.

Nothing happened for a moment as Teresa's eyes stopped glowing for a moment.

Suddenly, Naruto grabbed Clare, and threw them behind a tree as a huge gout of Black Lightning, one that would have taken Darui hours to prepare for, surrounded Teresa, who seemed to be able to control it with just a thought.

She dispelled it after playing with it for several minutes.

"I thought I knew what Lightning was, before I experienced... _that_", Teresa gushed. "The control, the power. I could feel the Black Lightning pulling in the very life force of the trees that it touched before vaporizing them... I fully understand how formidable Darui must have been..." she trailed off.

Naruto pushed his fingertips together, in a manner not unsimilar to a girl he had known many years ago, Hyuuga Hinata. It wasn't a shy gesture for him, just a comfortable tic that he picked up while thinking on his past. "Hmm, I don't recall Darui having that much Black Lightning. But yes, he said that the control was exhilarating beyond belief. I wonder what it's like."

"Is this the pinnacle of the element?" Teresa asked.

"Yes. The Lightning Release Armor, and the Black Lightning. You might want to try using your normal Lightning Jutsu with the Black Lightning. Do _not_ use me for experimentation. Lightning Jutsu may put me in a coma, but an equal amount will definitely kill me", Naruto frowned.

"I have done that in years. I'm sorry about that", Teresa said, sidling up to him, and running her hands over his shoulders.

Naruto nodded in resignation.

**The Seal and the Sword**

"The one I killed, Sai. He said that you had three Great Powers. What did he mean?"

"You've seen two of them, and the third, but you didn't know about the last one, I'm pretty sure. Great Powers are skills that most Shinobi don't have the ability to use, strengths that are so pronounced that it's hard to believe that they might have any weaknesses at all. Some of them do not have weaknesses. Two examples of Great Powers would be the Lightning Release Armor and the Black Lightning."

"I have _two_ of them?" Teresa stared.

"Yes, you're possibly the only person whose manifested them so quickly. The first of mine came to me when I was sixteen. The second was developed at twenty, and the last came after nearly a decade of studying. Only the first is unique - Sage Mode. I am the only person in history who has achieved the so-called 'perfect' Sage Mode, and possibly the only person who will ever do so. That's because Sage Mode is my Revelation."

"Revelation. You've said that word many, many times."

"The Revelation... of the Ten Bulls. It is... what separates those with true power from those who don't. It is with the Revelations in which you will gain a power so unique to you, it will name you a Deva. A mortal who has traversed the Samsara, and has stuck a toe into the realm of the Gods."

"I've never-"

"I've been saving it. I promised that I would teach you to become more powerful than you were in three years. And I'm going to deliver on it. You are currently on the pinnacle of power in terms of Thunder. You will receive your Revelation, I'm sure of it. Less worthy men and women have..."

"Prepare yourself, Teresa of the Faint Smile." They stopped suddenly, and Clare sat down quickly, watching them.

"In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains, my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull. I only hear the locusts chirping through the forest at night."

Teresa frowned. This was not what she was expecting, but she contemplated it anyway. She felt rather agitated.

"Along the riverbank under the trees, I discover footprints! Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints. Deep in remote mountains they are found. These traces no more can be hidden than one's nose, looking heavenward."

Naruto's eyes had taken on the orange pigmentation again, and his eyes were slowly and surely becoming yellow. Teresa shivered. It seemed to have... an effect on her companion.

When Naruto spoke again, his voice had split into two timbres, indicating that he had completed Sage Mode.

"I hear the song of the nightingale. The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore, here no bull can hide! What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?"

Natural energy began swirling around him, and when it touched Clare, she fell asleep. It crept towards Teresa, but her own Chakra, imbued with Lightning, fought with it.

"I seize him with a terrific struggle. His great will and power are inexhaustible. He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists, or in an impenetrable ravine he stands."

The Sage Chakra began to coat Naruto, and he was barely visible anymore as the yellow energy surrounded him. The Lightning swirled around Teresa uncontrollably, and she could feel her Yin and Yang Chakra... _coming apart_. She looked from side to side, alarmed, and realized that Naruto seemed just as agitated, though he hid it better.

"The whip and rope are necessary, else he might stray off down some dusty road. Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle. Then, unfettered, he obeys his master."

Naruto's yellow Sage Chakra had separated into five components, a swirling miasma of cool blues, a burning orange, deep brown, hard greys and lively greens. Her own Lightning Chakra became denser and denser.

"Mounting the bull, slowly I return homeward. The voice of my flute intones through the evening. Measuring with hand-beats the pulsating harmony, I direct the endless rhythm. Whoever hears this melody will join me."

The swirling of Naruto's Sage Chakra slowed significantly, and it moved almost sluggishly. Teresa's Lightning Chakra had condensed into the Lightning Release Armor, though it circled her slowly instead of creating a cloud around her.

"Astride the bull, I reach home. I am serene. The bull too can rest. The dawn has come. In blissful repose, within my thatched dwelling I have abandoned the whip and rope."

The Sage Chakra around Naruto stopped swirling, and began to grow. Teresa's own Lightning Release Armor had finally wrapped itself around her, much thicker than usual. The sparks that danced across it were not blue and white, but black.

"Whip, rope, person, and bull - all merge in nothing. This heaven is so vast no message can stain it. How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire? Here are the footprints of the patriarchs."

Teresa understood. She understood! The Black Lightning exploded around her, and Naruto's Sage Chakra matched it, and their Chakra battled fiercely, her Lightning lancing. To her dismay, Naruto's Sage Chakra was winning, nullifying her strikes, and slowly and surely pushing its way through her Lightning Release Armor.

"Too many steps have been taken returning to the root and the source. Better to have been blind and deaf from the beginning! Dwelling in one's true abode, unconcerned with that without - the river flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red."

Their Chakra natures immediately calmed, and assumed a type of tranquility that neither of them had in reality. A bubbling started in Teresa's stomach, and she felt a deep change moving within her. The Five Element Seal that Naruto had placed on her when he first met her crumbled away into dust, and her inner Yoma surged, but the two brands of Lightning Chakra easily defeated it, pushing it down without conscious thought from her.

She barely noticed the Youki at all - Naruto's Sage Chakra, and her dual-natured Lightning Chakra were overwhelming compared to it. A huge smile bloomed on Naruto's face, which was visible once more, and she could feel herself mirroring it.

"Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world... My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful. I use no magic to extend my life; Now, before me, the dead trees become alive."

Naruto's Sage Chakra mingled once again, and it became a burning yellow so powerful she thought she would go blind just looking at it. Clare slept on, completely oblivious to it all.

Her dual-nature Lightning Chakra... joined. Her Lightning Release Armor flashed once, twice, then fundamentally shifted. And she knew what it was, as the Revelation fell away.

"Lightning Void Armor", she said, making a ram seal. A huge cloud of Black Lightning condensed around her, and she knew exactly how much more power was available to her.

"I'm... strong", she said, her now-silver eyes flashing in triumph. She paused. "I'm... demonic again, am I?"

"I thought this might happen", Naruto admitted, running his hands over Teresa's Depleted Eight Trigrams Seal. "This is only still here because it's substantially more powerful than the Five Element. The Eight Trigrams Seal is the revelation of the Shodai Hokage, not mine. The fact that it was able to hold down your Yoma while you were receiving yours speaks to the man's power."

"Can you fix it?"

"Fix it?" Naruto wondered. "I don't think the Five Element Seal will have any effect on you anymore."

Teresa nodded, mildly disappointed.

"Oh right, I have to register you. _Kuchiyose no Jutsu_!" Naruto shouted, slashing through his thumb, and forming the handseals for the Summoning Technique. A rather large scroll suddenly appeared in his hands, which he rolled open.

"This is the Scroll of the Deva", Naruto said, pointing to the lines, points, and shapes that danced inside of the scroll. They never stopped moving, and Teresa knew, logically, that it didn't say anything, but she _could_ read it. She looked over at Clare, who was still out cold, and looked back at the scroll.

There were names that she recognized, and names that she didn't. There were two or three green names and descriptions, but the large majority of over fifty were black.

"The green ones are still alive, the black ones are dead."

Teresa nodded, and stared at the green one that said _Sage of Nine Tails - Revelation of Balance_, knowing exactly who it was.

"Put your hand on it", Naruto said, and Teresa did. The scroll glowed golden for a moment, and a new name was added. She smiled at it thinly. _Sage of Silver Eyes - Revelation of Thunder_.

"Alright, now that it's done", Naruto said, rolling up the scroll, "let's talk about the Youki stuff. I have a bunch of theories", he explained. "The first is that your Depleted Eight Trigrams will prevent you from Awakening, no matter what happens. The second is that you have completely subjugated the beast. The last is that there has been no change at all. You might want to channel some Youki to figure it out."

Teresa pulled at the Youki, releasing it through her Chakra coils, and she fell to the floor, moaning in pleasure. "Ohhh, that feels _very _good", she said, her eyes turning golden as she tackled Naruto and began to remove his clothing.

"B-but. Clare", Naruto pointed, protesting weakly. "She's slee- oh", he grunted as she gave him a squeeze. He immediately turned a blind eye to the softly snoring ten year old.

**[The Citrus is a lie.]**

"Why do all our conversations end in..." Naruto blushed. "Sex?"

"I thought you liked it that way", Teresa said. She was resting on Naruto, who was laying down on the air, demonstrating a complete mastery over his Chakra that she was unable to match. Her armor was strewn around them in a heap.

"Your eyes", Naruto looked, blushing deeper.

"You like them, because they're exotic", Teresa decided, and he nodded. "You're so silly."

**The Seal and the Sword**

"What's this?" Teresa smiled. "What's going on, Orsay?"

"There is... incontrovertible proof that you have killed humans, Teresa."

"Is that so?" Teresa asked, smiling. Naruto's hands were on Clare's shoulders, and the eleven year old girl was glaring at the man dressed in black.

"You must face punishment for your crimes."

"Punishment?" Teresa asked, her eyebrows raised. Her silver eyes flashed.

"She's unsealed", Orsay whispered to the warriors. Orsay and his five Claymore arrayed themselves in front of the trio in a semicircle. "Yes. You shall pay for your crimes today."

Teresa smiled, and it was then that Orsay knew she would _not_ be complying.

"Kill her!" he shouted, point at Teresa.

_Shak_.

A horrible sound of splitting flesh was hurt. In truth, it was five consecutive sounds, but only Naruto had heard them distinctly.

The five Claymore fell to the ground, wounded deeply, but alive. One seemed to be literally falling apart. Orsay jumped back in despair.

_Thunk_. Clare's three pronged kunai buried itself in a shocked Orsay's neck.

"Now, Clare. Why did you kill him? I was trying to make a point", Teresa smiled chidingly, not really angry at the girl.

"He tried to hurt you", she glared at the dead body of Teresa's Handler.

"Are we finally being hunted? It's been nearly five years since you've shown up. They must believe they have the ability to kill not only you, but also me. Either they have seriously underestimated us, or they have a very, very powerful weapon, ready to kill us with."

"I'm inclined to believe the first, but in the event that they _can_ kill us..."

"We'll leave. We'll travel the world. It's a beautiful place, you know, and we're probably not getting any younger."

"We're not getting any older either." Teresa smiled.

"We aren't."

They walked along, moving towards the northeast. "We're leaving then?" Naruto asked, hopefully.

"Yes, we're leaving."

"Dattebyo!" Naruto shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

Teresa stared at him strangely as he scratched his head. "That means 'believe it' in Japanese", he said, feeling rather embarrassed.

As day became night, they approached a town with a pair of Yoma, which they dispatched rather quickly.

"No need to thank me, a man in black-"

Abruptly, Teresa started giggling. Naruto and, surprisingly, Clare shook their heads.

"Don't worry about it. It's..." Teresa broke out in a fresh wave of giggles, "on the house."

**The Seal and the Sword**

I'm cutting it off here.

Bah. This was the hardest chapter to write yet, and it's shorter, but it has quite a bit more significance than some of the other ones. I know it's three thousand words less than expected, but it's already eight, and I want to put it out today. I also want to continue Kaleidoscope, and doing both while reading the absolutely fantastic work of the fanfiction writer Thanatos, as well as bits and pieces of the Fate/StayNight manga is impossible, even for a multi-tasker like me.

Meanwhile, I promise that the next chapter will come out within the week.

Notes about the chapter:

The Ten Bulls of Zen, or the Ten Bulls of the Sage, is an actual work. I absolutely love them - they're one of the most beautiful works... It's actually mildly (very, very mildly canon) - the Bijuu subduing technique (Mokuton: Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands is a reference to it)... also, if you read Kaleidoscope (which is still my main work), they're the Greengrass House chants, though I've modified them for that purpose. There's no bulls, and more grass. Heh.


End file.
